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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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JESUSCHRIST 



AS A- 



BUSINESS MAN 



-OR— 



he Ministry of Property 

. — BY— 

J. NESBIT WILSON 



FIRST EDITION 



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CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
THE WILLIAMS PUBLISHING AND ELECTRIC COMPANY. 

1896. 



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"The Gospel is not a book ; it is a living being, 
-with an action, a power, which invades every 
thing that opposes its extension. I never omit 
to read it, and every day with the same pleasure. 
Everything in Jesus Christ astonishes me. His 
spirit overawes me and His will confounds me. 
Between Him and whoever else in the world 
there is no possible terms of comparison. He is 
truiy a being by Himself. Jesus borrowed noth- 
ing from science. One can absolutely find no- 
where, but in Him alone, the imitation of the ex- 
ample of His life. In fact, the sciences and 
philosophy avail nothing for salvation ; and 
Jesus came into the world to reveal the mysteries 
of heaven and the laws of the spirit. What an 
abyss between mv deep misery and the eternal 
reign of Christ, whichis proclaimed, loved, adored, 
and which is extending all over the earth! Is 
this to die? Is it not rather to live ? The death 
of Christ — it is the death of God." For a moment 
the Emperor was silent. As General Bertrand 
made no reply, he solemnly added, "If you do 
not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well; 
then I did wrong to make you a general." 

Napoleon Bonaparte. 



Copyright 1896, 
By J. Nesbit Wilson, Cleveland, Ohio. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 5 

Chapter I. 
Parental Love 7 

Chapter II. 
The Sin of the Devil 28 

Chapter III. 
The Sin in Eden 37 

Chapter IV. 
The Temptation of Jesus 51 

Chapter V. 
Palestine and the United States 65 

Chapter VI. 
The Common People 79 

Chapter VII. 
"The Lord's Prayer 98 

Chapter VIII. 
The Unjust Steward Ill 

Chapter IX. 
The Sin Against the Holy Ghost 129 



4 CONTEXTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter X. 
The Sense of Ownership 145 

Chapter XI. 
Abraham and Job 166 

Chapter XII. 
The Plutocracy 183 

Chapter XIII. 
The Right of Title 204 

Chapter XIV. 
The Folly of Wealth 216 

Chapter XV. 
Jesus and the Rich Man 225 

Chapter XVI. 
Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees 252 

Chapter XVII. 
The Greatest Sin and Greatest Sinners 263 

Chapter XVIII. 
Peter, Put up Thy Sword 289 

Chapter XIX. 
Christian Communism ? 303 

Chapter XX. 
The Battle of Armageddon 314 



INTRODUCTION. 




I >HE subject of our book is, "Jesus Christ as a Busi- 
ness Man; or, The Ministry of Property." The 
Scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ was the son of 
a carpenter, and that He was a carpenter. Never did labor 
receive so high honor as when He took up the axe and the 
adze, the chizel and the plane. Had you seen Him bargain- 
ing for His labor, delivering the finished work to its owner, 
you would have seen the Master of all tradesmen doing 
business. But this applies to Him and to His life before 
His public ministry began, and it is not to this part of His 
life that we wish to call attention or give emphasis in our 
book. 

His public ministry, His dealing with men for time and 
eternity, enlarging upon His teachings in regard to the 
ministry of property, is the subject of the following pages. 
It is true that Jesus Christ was a minister in the highest 
sense of the word, and it is also true that He was a busi- 
ness man, who never had His equal or one that can com- 
pare with Him. His dealings with men include and reveal 
a perfect and complete business policy. From His first 
sermon up in Nazareth till He ascended into heaven, every 
word and move was in the line of the highest ideal of 
practical business. Take His whole plan of salvation, from 
the time Adam and Eve fell till the last sinner saved shall 
be within the gates of the New Jerusalem, and every 
step is marked with the highest type that business can 
assume or take. There is nothing in all the commercial 
world which compares with the scheme of redemption, not 
only in the vastness of its proportions, but in the practical 



INTRODUCTION. 

workings of its every detail. It is the crystallization of a 
perfect business scheme. In it Jesus Christ has shown 
Himself to be, not only the greatest, but the highest type 
of a business man of whom the world has any knowledge. 
His great announcement is most emphatically true here, 
''I am the light of the world ; he that folio weth me shall 
not walk in darkness." "I am the way, the truth, and 
the life." 

If we, in our social intercourse, take Him and His life as 
our pattern, and in the business world transact our business 
as He dealt and deals with men, we have the remedy for all 
our commercial and social wrongs at hand ; while business 
life on earth will have attained its perfection. Elements 
are in the plan of redemption, which, if applied to our busi- 
ness world, would adjust all our difficulties between labor 
and capital, the employe and the employer. There is not a 
good and great principle in business which does not find its 
perfection in Jesus Christ, neither is there a good and great 
principle advocated by the working men which does not 
find its completion in His teachings and conduct. 

A judge once said that he owed his great success on the 
bench to the fact that he stuck close to Moses' Law. Daniel 
Webster said he got his eloquence from the Bible, and 
Cassius M. Clay said he learned his beautiful diction from 
reading the parables of Jesus Christ. So men will never do 
business right till they study Jesus Christ, and take the 
plan of redemption and His teachings as a guide in all their 
affairs, and follow it as the mariner follows the lines 
marked out on the chart to direct his ship across the sea. 

J. N. W. 

Cleveland, 0., May 25, 1896. 



CHAPTER I. 



PARENTAL LOVE. 

JpT was a balmy evening in June that Mr. Smith 
dl sat on the veranda of his pleasant home and 
said to his wife : "My dear, what do you think of 
our going to Europe and spending a year with your 
parents and mine, walking over the old paths we 
trod a quarter of a century ago?" 

"It is just what I have had in mind for a long 
time," said Mrs. Smith. "It is true that Tommy is 
only ten and Mary seven ; but John is nearly twenty 
and has such an old head, we can trust him to take care 
of the children as wisely as if he were their father. 
Then Lucy is eighteen, has just graduated, and 
taking charge of the house for a year will be a 
good post-graduate course for her ; Charley is fif- 
teen, and ought to begin to learn to take care of 
himself. I think it is just the thing to do, if you 
can leave your business." 

Mr. Smith replied: "The business is in good 
shape ; I have been planning for this, and have ar- 
ranged things so John can manage them, with 
Charley helping him. We can let them have all the in- 
come to divide among them, then the more they make 
the more they will have ; it will be fine living, and 



8 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

they will have a good time as well as we. Then the 

coal bank down at M , which ought to be started, I 

will fix so the boys can operate, if they want to ; 
and if they do they can live like princes, and each 
one of the children have a nice little bank account 
when we get back." 

Mr. Smith laughed heartily as he thought how 
happily he could fix his children. 

"Your plan is splendid," said Mrs. Smith. "It 
seems as if it were providential, the way things 
have fixed themselves, to let us go at this time, and 
we must not let this opportunity pass. 

Mr. Smith felt his heart swell within him as he 
replied : "This is something I have anxiously 
looked forward to, when we could make the trip, 
and see both of our parents alive. You don't know 
how thankful I feel." 

As Mr. Smith uttered these last words, he 
choked with emotion at the thought of the time when 
the aged four would receive their children to their 
arms and homes. 

"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "why not be off at 
once? Let us call in the children and see how it 
will take with them." 

"Go ahead," said Mr. Smith. 

The children were called into the parlor and the 
plans laid before them. Tommy lay on the floor, 
with his head turned up like a snake, and his little 
bare feet kicked up, while Mary sat near tickling 
them with a feather. John sat grave as a judge, 
with a business air and demeanor worthy a man of 



PARENTAL LOVE. 9 

twice his years. He grasped the entire plan, took in 
the whole situation, and advised his parents to go by 
all means, promisinghe would see to everything while 
they were gone. Lucy joined heartily with J.ohn, 
and so did Charley. 

At the Smith home, everything from that on, for 
a fortnight, was hurry and bustle, getting ready for 
the trip. Every day Mrs. Smith talked with Mary 
and Tommy about being good little children while 
their parents were away, telling them they must 
obey John and Lucy, and not play with bad little 
children out on the street, and especially, they must 
not go down to play with the Brown children, 
saying to Tommy: "You know you always get 
into a fight every time you go down there." Both 
Tommy and Mary promised they would not go. 

The day came to start, and when the carriage 
drove up to the house to take Mr. and Mrs. Smith 
to the train, they kissed their children good-bye, 
and while John, Lucy and Charley followed down 
to the carriage door, Tommy and Mary stood on 
the veranda, and the last look the fond parents got 
of their little darlings was Tommy and Mary 
dancing and throwing kisses after them, saying, 
"Dood-bye, mamma; dood-bye, papa; we'll be 
dood children while you're done." 

As the carriage turned a corner which cut off the 
view, the strong man's head dropped, while tears 
sprang from his eyes at the thought that a year 
would pass before he would see his little cherubs 
again. 



IO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

Mrs. Smith exclaimed, "Why, you are a bigger 
baby about those children than I am. You must 
not feel so, for they will be happy. John will 
take good care of them, and see that nothing goes 
wrong." 

Mr. Smith looked out of the carriage and tried 
to get his thoughts on something else, while Mrs. 
Smith said : " Well, indeed, I don't blame you after 
all, for if I had not seen you crying, I myself should 
have cried, and you know I have always said that 
one baby at a time is enough." 

By the time they had reached the station, Mr. 
Smith's tears were all brushed from his eyes, and 
the two were apparently as joyful as if they were 
a quarter of a century younger and on their 
wedding trip. 

The business being left in John's hands, he 
received all drafts and drew all checks ; for his 
father had made John's credit as good as his own. 
John saw there was a fine chance to make money, 
to make it easy and make it fast. Then, neither 
Lucy nor Charley knew anything about the coal 
bank ; and if they did, they could not handle it, so 
he concluded to say nothing to them about it. 

After John had looked carefully over the field, 
he saw he could pay Charley an extra good salary, 
and give Lucy an abundant allowance for the 
house, which would give both of them more money 
than they ever had before, he would still have 
more than half of the income of his father's estate 
left for himself. So he concluded there was no use 



PARENTAL LOVE. II 

in letting the rest of the children know anything 
about how large this income was, nor about the 
coal bank at M . 

As John sat at the dinner-table that evening with 
Lucy and Charley, he said he had been thinking 
over their father's wishes in regard to his children, 
and they all knew it was his desire the children 
might have a good time while he was in Europe. 
So he told Lucy and Charley that he had concluded 
to make this sure to them, by giving them a fixed 
salary or allowance, which should be large, and he 
would take good care of Tommy and Mary, and get 
along himself somehow on what was left ; so if any 
one was short, he would be the one. When 
John named the salary he would give Charley, 
Charley declared there was not another boy in the 
city getting as good a salary as that ; and when he 
told Lucy the amount she was to have for the run- 
ning expenses of the house, she said, "That is more 
than ever mother got from father." Both declared 
themselves in good fortune, feared John was rob- 
bing himself, and felt they were under great obli- 
gations to him for his magnanimity and generosity. 
They often talked together of what a good brother 
John was, and wondered if any other boy or girl 
in the city had so fine a brother. 

John had life-sized portraits of his father and 
mother made and hung in the parlor. He purchased 
a new parlor carpet, took the large front-room up- 
stairs for a library, and bought new books for Lucy 
and Charley to read. This, however, necessitated 



12 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the removal of the bed-room of Mary and Tommy 
to the attic, which Lucy thought would be just as 
good for children, and if they needed anything in 
the night, they would be near the hired girl, who 
would take care of them. 

John also sodded the yard where the children 
had worn off the grass in their play. He then for- 
bade Tommy and Mary going on the grass, or 
bringing other little children into the yard to play. 
He also gave strict orders that the house was not to 
be turned upside down with the children playing 
in it, or bringing in all the neighbors' children. 
There was plenty of room for ^hem on the walks 
and in the kitchen. Lucy very . cheerfully and 
strictly enforced all these orders for John. 

While Lucy and Charley were well pleased with 
the new turn things had taken, and looked upon 
John as a benefactor and philanthropist, Mary and 
Tommy were not so well pleased, and the longer 
things went on, the greater became their discon- 
tent. But neither Lucy nor Charley had any sym- 
pathy with their complaining. Let them be good 
children and John would treat them all right, they 
said. And so they were set down as being across 
the path, in the onward march of civilization and 
the great material improvement which had come to 
the Smith family. 

Said Lucy : " Children are always complaining, 
and there is no use in paying any attention to them. 
Let them go off and keep quiet." 

Of course, the children went out on the streets 



PARENTAL LOVE. 13 

and into the alleys, or any place where they could 
find children to play with. Mary would get so dirty 
that her face could hardly be seen ; and there was 
not a week passed that Tommy did not go down to 
the Brown children and get into trouble. John had 
a full sense of his authority, and was indignant at 
the way the children were acting. Both he and 
Lucy took very high grounds on the question of 
their parents' orders being enforced and obeyed. 
John's conscience had troubled him at times, be- 
cause he was absorbing more than half the income 
of his father's estate ; but as matters now seemed, 
he saw the great necessity there was for some one 
to conserve the interests of these younger children , 
and the argument seemed to justify all his robbery 

Often in the evenings, John, Lucy and Charley 
would gather their young friends into the library 
and have a little reading-circle, and John would 
give an occasional essay on " The Best Ways to 
Keep Children Off the Streets," and "The Necessity 
of an Older Brother's Conserving the Wealth of 
the Parents' Estate when the Father is Absent." 

At dinner, Lucy often rehearsed to John the 
shortcomings of the children for the day. When 
the dinner was over, John would call the children 
in, remind them of their mother's last words and 
shame them, questioning them as to what their 
father and mother would think of such behavior, 
and sternly telling them, their mother could not love 
such naughty children, and if their father were 
there they would both get a good whipping. Then 



14 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

Tommy and Mary were sent up to the attic to their 
little beds as a punishment. They would go and 
sob and cry themselves to sleep, thinking how 
their mamma and papa away across the big sea did 
not love them, and would resolve and resolve again 
that they would be good children and not go out on 
the streets to play, and never again go down to the 
bad Brown children. 

So things went on with the natural variations for 
full a year. One day when John came home to 
lunch, Lucy took him up to see Mary, who was 
sick in bed. As soon as John saw her, he ex- 
claimed : " Of all things ! she has the scarlet fever." 
" Oh!" said Lucy, " what shall we do? We shall 
be quarantined as soon as the doctor comes ; then 
you know we have two engagements for the theatre 
this week, and one night at Christian Endeavor, 
and Barnum's show is coming next week, and your 
birthday party will be a week from to-morrow, for 
which the invitations are already out. Oh, my! 
what shall we do?" 

She had not finished speaking, when Tommy 
came in, howling at the top of his voice : " Those 
nasty Brown boys hit me on the nose." The blood 
was running freely, and the tears were making 
channels down through the dirt on his cheeks, 
while his clothes were full of dust and dirt. 

The vision of John's boyhood days rose before 
him in a moment, and in all he never saw himself 
as such a naughty and disobedient child. With 
a clear conception of his own virtues, his soul, to 



PARENTAL LOVE. 15 

him, swelled with righteous indignation as he ex- 
claimed : "I think it is time your father were get- 
ting home and taking you in charge. They have 
stayed away over their year already. You need a 
good, sound whipping for going down to those 
hair-brained scapegraces, and I will see to it that 
you get it when your father comes home. Go up 
to your bed-room and stay there until I tell you to 
come down. You have told me often enough you 
would not go down to Brown's, and still you have 
gone. You are a little liar." 

John turned to Lucy and said: "Annie (the 
hired girl) is nearly as old as mother, and she 
was telling me only a few days ago that she had 
nursed a great many patients at the hospital who 
had the scarlet fever. We will give Mary into her 
hands and she will know what to do as well as the 
doctor. We will keep them up in the attic ; I will 
get another girl for the kitchen, and we will let no- 
body know anything about it." 

"But," said Lucy, "Tommy, the little rascal, 
never knows how to keep his mouth shut, and he 
has shown himself to be a little liar, and he will 
tell it to all the children in the streets." 

" Oh!" replied John, " I will shut him up in the 
attic with Mary, to watch her when Annie is out, 
and he can give her drinks and fan her. I will see 
whether he is going to carry on in the way he has 
been any longer." 

" John, you are a host to plan," said Lucy. 

The night came for John's birthday party. All 



l6 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

their young friends were present. The hired girl 
had set the table, and asked Annie to come down 
to see if it were all right. The rich eatables and 
the bright light of the chandelier, shining down 
from above, made everything look inviting enough 
for a king. 

In the meantime, Tommy had slipped down to 
take a survey of the situation. He kept a sharp 
lookout for Annie, so she did not see him. The 
scene was a tempting one to Tommy. He watched 
till he saw Annie and the girl withdraw to allow 
the guests to come in ; then he slipped up to the 
table to get a part of the share which was fairly 
coming to him and Mary. He pulled off candy and 
sweet cake until his arms were full, then ran up- 
stairs. But Tommy did not exercise the care of a 
caterer in the way he removed his part, and so left 
very visible tracks behind him. 

He had barely made his escape, when John, with 
his best girl on his arm, entered the room, with all 
the guests following. When they surrounded the 
table, John and Lucy exchanged looks, said nothing, 
and both readily divined the cause of the condition 
of things. 

The next morning, while they were at the break- 
fast table, Annie came in and said, in tender ac- 
cents, " Mary is much worse, and Tommy is sick 
also. I am so sorry your father and mother have 
been delayed at sea." 

John laid down his knife and fork, leaned back 
in his chair and, with an air of superior worth and 



PARENTAL LOVE. 17 

outraged virtue, said: "Just as I expected. 
Tommy has foundered on that cake he stole from 
me last night, and has given it to Mary, and that is 
what has made her worse. I tell you, he is begin- 
ning to be a thief pretty early. I shall not be sur- 
prised if he ends on the gallows yet. I think it is 
time his father were getting home." 

Annie saw her uneven position and withdrew 
without saying anything farther. 

Lucy remarked : " Tommy ought to be ashamed 
of himself," and to herself she wondered how it 
could be that so nice a young man as John was a 
brother to so bad a boy as Tommy ; why he could 
not take pattern from his oldest brother. 

Charley listened and took, second-hand, what 
John and Lucy said, as his opinion. He thought he 
was doing well and wanted to hold his position, 
and this was about the extent of Charley's concern. 

The next day was the first of August, and in the 
afternoon the carriage drove up from the depot 
with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, home from their Euro- 
pean trip, looking hearty and well. 

Lucy ran to the carriage and pulled her mother 
out; her father alighted just long enough to kiss 
her and say : " Are the boys at the office? " Lucy 
replied that they were. "I will go for them," said 
Mr. Smith, " and be back in a few minutes." As 
he got into the carriage, he said to the driver, 
" Now let the horses step along," and away they 
went. 

Mrs. Smith, with Lucy, went into the house ; as 



l8 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

soon as in, she said, "Where are my babies?" 
Lucy told her how Mary and Tommy had been 
naughty children ; how they had disobeyed her and 
played on the streets, and Tommy had gone down 
to the Brown children and John and she had done 
their best to make them keep away, but could not, 
and now Mary had the scarlet fever, was in her bed 
up in the attic, and they had shut Tommy up along 
with her to make him behave, but he came down 
and stole candy and sweet cake off the table at 
John's birthday party, and it had made them both 
sick ; he was getting to be one of the worst 
boys — " Before Lucy had time to finish this sen- 
tence, Mrs. Smith was flying up the stairs to the 
attic. 

As she opened the door of the room where they 
lay, the hot and sickening air struck her, and it 
went to her soul like a pall. She slipped to the 
bedside of Mary, and knelt down over her, saying 
" Oh ! mamma's sick little darling!" and began 
kissing her. The little faint voice said, "Mamma!" 
and the weak, thin arm tried to raise itself to hug 
her, but the strength failed it. Annie, kneeling be- 
side Mrs. Smith, said softly : " She is very sick." 
The child gasped. That was her last ; and Mary was 
.dead in the arms of her mother. 

The eyes of Mrs. Smith looked like glass. Not a 
tear was in them ; and she condemned herself be- 
cause she could not cry, asking herself if her heart 
had become a stone. She turned to Tommy, and 
there the little fellow lay, covered all over with 



PARENTAL LOVE. IO, 

scarlet rash. " O mamma," he cried, " Tommy is 
glad to see you !" and, as she kissed him, she began 
to cry, and her bursting agony had some relief. 
Tommy went on, saying : "I have been a bad boy 
while you were gone, mamma. I went down and 
played with the Brown children. I didn't mind 
you, mamma, and John had to shut me up here in 
the garret with Mary, and I got sick. Will papa 
whip me, mamma, when he comes?" " Whip you, 
my child?" said Mrs. Smith. "No, no, no!" and 
the strength of a strong man came to her. She 
grasped him in her arms, took him up, carried him 
down-stairs, saying, " No, darling, no ! You are 
papa and mamma's sweet little cherub ; and they 
prayed so often for their little Tommy while they 
were gone. Mamma won't leave her little darling 
another minute in this hot room." *" Though he 
was as scarlet," he "was white as snow" in his 
mother's eyes; "though he was red like crimson," 
he " was as wool," to hen 

When down-stairs, she laid hirh on the couch in 
the sitting-room, kneeling down and bending over 
him, with her gaze intently fixed upon him. 

During this time, Mr. Smith had gone to the 
office, saw that business was in good shape, and re- 
turned with the boys, entering the house a few min- 
utes after Mrs. Smith had come down. John had 
called his father's attention to the fine sod in the 
yard, and as they came through the parlor, asked 

* Isaiah i., 18. 



20 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

him to look at the beautiful portraits he had put in 
the parlor. 

But Mr. Smith's eye caught Tommy lying sick on 
the couch, and said to his wife, "How is this?" 
She whispered, while gently stroking her child's 
locks of hair, "He has the scarlet fever!" The 
strong man, weak as a child, stooped down beside 
his boy, while Tommy said, " Are you going to 
whip me, papa? John said you would. You 
don't love Tommy, do you, papa, because he went 
down to the Brown children? " 

Mr. Smith, thinking the child was delirious, made 
no answer, and said : " Where is Mary? " 

Mrs. Smith tried to speak, but could not. In a 
moment, from her suffocating grief, in broken 
syllables, came, "Go — to — the — attic!" The ac- 
cents of her voice spoke volumes to her husband, 
and to the attic he quickly went, where he found 
faithful Annie sitting by the dead form of his child. 
He demanded what this all meant ; and Annie told 
him all, as Lucy had told it to her, of John's opera- 
tions. But, however she might tell it, Mr. Smith 
saw to the end of all that had happened and been 
done by John. 

He took the dead body in his arms and carried it 
down-stairs, holding it tightly to his breast. As 
soon as he reached the foot of the stairs, he said : 
" John, I command you to tell me what you have 
been doing while we were away." John began 
telling his father what a bad boy Tommy had been, 
and how he and Mary would play out on the streets, 



PARENTAL LOVE. 21 



contrary to his and their mother's orders ; that they 
had gotten scarlet fever by it, and he was obliged 
to keep Tommy shut up in the attic, to keep him 
away from the Brown children, and so on. The 
father could listen no longer and broke in upon him, 
saying: " I left you here in my place with these 
your younger brothers and sisters. I entrusted you, 
my oldest and strongest child, with my property, 
and upon you I conferred the power of my name. 
This was done, not that you might take to yourself 
the greater part of the income of my estate, but 
that you, as my minor son, might enjoy your fair, 
equitable portion of it, and have the honor of stand- 
ing at the head of the family and distributing to the 
rest of the children their portion. You have 
been unfaithful to your trust. You have brought 
death to our family and sorrow to our souls. I 
never can trust you again. You have sinned 
against your mother's being and against your 
father's love. These little ones are part of our 
flesh and parcel of our blood. How can we abide 
you as our son any longer? You must depart from 
our home and house." 

And the mother spoke in trembling accents, yet 
in all the firmness of her soul : " Mary is dead and 
Tommy is dying, and it is all your fault. I will go 
down to the grave to my child mourning." 

John went out from the presence of his parents 
with the *curse of Cain upon him, forever to be a 



* Genesis iv., 16. 



22 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

stranger to his father's house, on account of his 
selfishness. 

In like manner, Jesus represents the judge of the 
world at the great assizes, as saying " unto them on 
the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : 
for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat : I 
was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a 
stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye 
clothed me not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited 
me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, 
Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, 
or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and 
did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer 
them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as 
ye did it not to one of the least of these my breth- 
ren, ye did it not to me. " * 

As soon as the storm of indignation had quieted, 
Lucy began apologizing for John, saying he had 
been so kind to them, and that he had fixed up the 
house so nicely, and given her more money than she 
ever had before, and Gharley had better wages than 
any other boy in town. John had tried to make 
Tommy and Mary be good children, and often said 
he would give them more money, but he was afraid 
they would buy too much candy with it and get 
sick ; and then, Tommy might learn to smoke, if he 
had money to buy cigars ; that John had fixed up 
the parlor better than it ever had been before, and 

*Math. xxv., 41*45 



PARENTAL LOVE. 23 

she thought Mr. and Mrs. Smith ought to take 
some notice of the fine portraits John had had made 
of them. Then, John bought fine books, and got 
Charley to read lots of evenings, instead of going 
down into the city after dinner. John had given 
to the church more than any young man in it, and 
often said if he became rich, he would like to 
give their church the finest pipe-organ in the city, 
and she believed if he obtained riches, he would 
make a philanthropist. 

To this the father replied : " All this he did to 
be seen of men ; to flatter his pride and swell his. 
vanity."* 

Charley then said : " John was looked upon as - - 
the best business young man in the city," and that 
he thought John was all right ; he had given him.' 
higher wages than any other boy was getting. 

"Yes," said the father, "but he stole it all and 
as much more out of my estate, which belonged to* 
you all equally. Then, he stole the entire earnings. 

out of the coal bank down at M , straight 

out." 

But Lucy insisted if John started the coal bank 

at M and ran it, she could not see why it 

was not his. As for Charley and herself, they had 
never heard anything about it until now. She 
knew John had worked hard, and often went to 
the office at night and worked until midnight, and 
she guessed if any one else had the same chance 

* Math, xxiii., 5. 



24 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and sense enough to do it, they would do the same 
thing. 

But the father replied : " It was all mine and 
for my children alike, not his; Tommy and Mary 
have gotten almost nothing, and have been shut up 
in that hot garret, without proper attention, amidst 
the abundance I left for all : and with which none 
of you would have had need, had not John by his 
superior power of age, and the place I gave him, 
taken advantage of me, and robbed my children of 
what my love designed for them. Do you not see 
while he paid you good wages and a liberal allow- 
ance, he took your own to do it with, and then did 
not give you half that was coming to you by an 
equitable division, while he absorbed more than he 
gave to all of you. Do you not see if I had delayed 
my coming another year, he would have had you 
and Charley just where he has Mary and Tommy 
now. Can you not understand, that all this pre- 
tended kindness is merely to get his hold more 
firmly fastened upon my property and hold himself in 
position where he can rob poor little defenceless 
Mary and Tommy? And your turn in like manner 
would come as soon as he could gather strength and 
get the power over you." 

Is it any wonder that Jesus, with all the strength 
of a father's love in condemnation, and with the 
sweet, disinterested, self-sacrificing, quiet love of a 
mother, when He came to the world, and found 
Mary dead, away up in some hot, filthy garret, and 
Tommy dying in some loathsome cellar, on ac- 



PARENTAL LOVE. 25 

count of the oppression and greediness of the 
strong, that He announced Himself not only as the 
friend of the poor, but the friend of sinners.* 

No wonder we read when He was up in the de- 
spised and adjudged unholy Samaria, in the hot air 
of Sychar's immorality, sitting on the curb of 
Jacob's well, that He talked to the woman who was 
a sinner ; and when her heart warmed to His heav- 
enly message, He told her first, that we have any 
record of, that He was the promised and long- 
looked-for Messiah. No wonder He sent her, the 
first missionary, up to Sychar, to tell her friends and 
neighbors of the advent of the Saviour, of the God- 
man being on earth. "Come, see a man," she 
said, " which told me all things that ever I did : is 
not this the Christ ?"f 

Is it any wonder that He made the house of 
Mary, out of whom He cast seven devils, and her 
sister Martha, His abiding-place when in Bethany? 
Is it any wonder that He did not leave one hard or 
condemning word against the poor drunkard, or 
against her upon whom the foot of society has al- 
ways rested so heavily? Their sins are sins of 
weakness, and the result of environments, rather 
than any choice on their part ; and these conditions 
were made by people whom the world looked upon 
as respectable, and often as religious. 

Mary and Tommy were naughty children and 
needed their parents' care and their parents' correc- 

* Luke xxiv., 25. f John rv., 29. 



26 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

tions. But John and Lucy were greater sinners 
than they, and by the law of "He that is with- 
out sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
her,"* they had no right to punish Tommy and 
Mary. These last sinned as it is natural for chil- 
dren to sin. Theirs were sins which make the 
parents love their children none the less ; they ex- 
pect to find them in all children, and cheerfully will 
educate them out, and multiplying years will leave 
them all behind. 

But John's sins were from selfishness, a disposi- 
tion implanted by the devil. His sins were those 
which would not pass away with years, but would 
rather grow worse. His sins were committed not 
so much against himself as against others. His 
sins were not those of an over-excited appetite or 
wrongly indulged honest passion ; neither were they 
the result of commanding environments. 

A man once said to me : I think we ought to 
discriminate between religious, good rich men, who 
are respecters of God and God's house, and rich 
men who have no regard for sacred things and are 
openly bad or depraved. If we do, we will have 
to say : It was John's smooth, pious-going ways 
which caused Charley and Lucy to uphold him and 
apologize for his sinning. It was this character 
which made his parents trust him and gave him the 
opportunity to work his plans. His smooth out- 
side was the deceit which opened the door for his 

* John viii., 7. 



PARENTAL, LOVE. 2>] 

devilishness inside to accomplish its work with the 
greatest success. Lucy and Charley accounted John 
righteous, even in the workings of his iniquity, and 
held Tommy and Mary as wicked. But the par- 
ents, when they saw what he had done, discovered 
and laid bare his awful crime and sin. 

John himself thought he was righteous. For 
while a selfish heart covered over with a cunning, 
smooth demeanor deceives others, it deceives its 
possessor more than anyone else, as we shall show 
is true by Divine revelation. 



CHAPTER II. 




THE SIN OF THE DEVIL. 

'HE nature of the sin by which the devil fell, 
and for which he was cast out and forever 
banished from heaven, might at first appear as an 
impenetrable mystery. But it is very strange if 
that which so essentially affects the interests and 
lives of men cannot be determined. 

Satan's manner of doing things with men gives 
us his character and nature ; then, by applying 
things which are necessarily so, we can doubtless 
ascertain the correct facts in the case of his con- 
duct and fall in heaven. 

We know the law of heaven is love, and there is no 
doubt that angels in heaven are governed by broth- 
erly love, and are equal one with another in point of 
privileges. There is no aristocracy in heaven, no 
poor class, no captains, no colonels nor generals 
amid all those holy children of God. Michael, it 
is true, is spoken of as an archangel, but Michael is 
evidently Jesus Christ. Wherever there is evidence 
in the Scriptures of rank or degree among the 
angels, it is spoken of as the fallen angels. Rank 
in rule, authority or power of one man over 
another is not in God's creation ; and so far as any- 

28 



THE SIN OF THE DEVIL. 20, 

thing akin to it exists among the wild animals, in 
the stronger preying upon the weaker for food, 
grows out of the annoyance and disturbance of 
Satan in the world. God's law is seen among the 
kinder birds, the fish, the herbiverous animals and 
the flowers of the field, living in brotherly love 
one with another. 

Paul speaks of the great final victory of Jesus 
Christ over sin in the world, being the complete 
overthrow of all dominion and lording it by some 
men over others. He says, " Then cometh the end, 
when Jesus shall have delivered up the kingdom to 
God, even the Father ; when he shall have abol- 
ished all rule and all authority and power. For he 
must reign till he hath put all enemies under his 
feet."* Jesus Christ's errand to the world was to 
destroy the power of Satan and the sins which he 
had implanted in the hearts of men. These sins, as 
stated by the apostle, and which Jesus Christ will 
overthrow, are rule, authority and power. In 
darkest heathenism these go unchecked and unre- 
strained. The development and rise of liberty is the 
breaking down of rule, authority and power. 
Where these are not, and brotherly love controls the 
actions of men, freedom is in her full tide and civ- 
ilization is in its perfection. "If the Son there- 
fore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed, "j 
When Jesus Christ shall pronounce men free, it will 
be the total abolition of all forms of rule, authority 

* 1 Cor. xv., 24, 25. f John viii., 36. 



30 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and government of one man over another ; and 
every man shall be a law unto himself. Then, and 
not till then, shall He deliver up the kingdom unto 
God, even the Father. And when it is so done, men 
on earth will be like the angels in heaven, as drops 
of water, or atoms of air mingling together one 
with another, governed under God, by the great law 
of brotherly love, as gravitation holds in place and 
governs matter. Jesus Christ's kingdom, on the one 
hand, is love, equality and freedom ; Satan's king- 
dom, on the other hand, is rule, authority and 
power. 

Jesus speaks of Satan as " the prince of this 
world,"* and Paul calls him the "God of this 
world."f Satan lorded it over the world then, and 
has done so entirely too much since, to our sorrow 
and to our shame. This he has done entirely through 
motives of selfishness and greed for rule, authority 
and power ; and every particle of it he wrested from 
the hands of God and men in violation of the high 
law of brotherly love. 

It is said when Michael cast out from heaven 
" that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which 
deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into 
the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." J 

The Saviour speaks of Satan as " Beelzebub, 
which is the prince of devils. "§ From these pas- 
sages, it is certain that Satan is, and always was, 
at the head of all the devils, and that he led the 

♦John xii., 31. f 2 Cor. iv., 4. $ Rev. xii., 9. § Math, xii., 27. 



THE SIN OF THE DEVIL. 31 

great revolt in heaven when he fell. The very idea 
of Satan, the old devil, is that of a leader, the chief 
in hell ; while he is revealed in the Scriptures as the 
prince of this world, with assumed rule, authority 
and power taken from God and gained over men 
through deceit. As he is doing on earth, he doubt- 
less tried to do in heaven, and for this sin he was, 
in all probability, cast out. 

The sin of the devil is not drunkenness, nor im- 
morality, nor larceny, nor anything of these like 
That Satan inspires these sins and tempts men to 
do them is true ; but they are secondary forms of 
selfishness, being mixed with lawful passions, appe- 
tites and desires. While they degrade men in the 
sight of their fellows, and society and law have put 
the stamp of sin and crime upon them, they do not 
so irremeably damn a man's nature as selfishness, 
even though it be dressed up in the cleanest char- 
acter. 

These sins weaken men's bodies and minds, and 
through them men lose their self-respect, dignity 
and courage. This unfits them for defending them- 
selves against their oppressors. The deeper men 
are sunken in vice, the easier and stronger Satan 
can bind his chains about them. Then, these 
crimes take up the attention of society in their re- 
formatory movements, while Satan is left compara- 
tively unobserved to make conquests in more gigan- 
tic forms of sin. Here is one of Satan's master 
moves, namely, to keep the attention of good peo- 
ple focused on the sins of the drunkard and the 



32 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

woman who is a sinner ; while he and his strong- 
est agents and men most like himself have an open 
field to work out their selfish plans, and even while 
so doing, wear the garb of saints and honorable 
men. Selfishness is sin in its pure satanic meanness 
and accursedness. Between selfishness and devil- 
ishness there is no difference. As a man becomes 
selfish, he approaches the nature of a devil. To the 
extent with which a man's acts are prompted by- 
selfishness, they are like the devil's doings. A 
thoroughly selfish man is a devil incarnate, no mat- 
ter what virtues else he may claim to have. One 
of my old professors once said to our class : "You 
must not expect too much from conversion. If you 
get a selfish, stingy man converted, you do not take 
the selfishness out of him. He will stay selfish and 
stingy still." The doctor applied his experience 
among men correctly, but his theology was not true 
to the Scriptures, and was clouded with the com- 
mandments of men taught for doctrine. He had 
better said, When you get a selfish man converted, 
you do not have him converted at all ; y^ou have 
only gotten him to join the church, and you had 
better have let him stay out, both for his own 
soul and the influence on good morals. 

The devil is not a drunkard, he is not immoral, 
he would not hesitate to join the church, if he could 
gain a point by it, and could make himself look 
enough like a man that his exotic nature would not 
be detected. The devil could pray and be very 
sanctimonious, he could be a temperance reformer, 



THE SIN OF THE DEVIL. 33 

or president of a law and order society, or endow 
an asylum, or a college, or build a church. But 
one thing the devil cannot do — he cannot love. 
His nature is the exact opposite — selfishness. " Now 
abideth faith, hope, charity," or brotherly love, 
"these three; but the greatest of these is charity." 
Jesus Christ is love. Paul might, with equal truth 
and philosophy, have written : Now abideth pride, 
unbelief and. selfishness, these three ; but the most 
damnable of the trio is selfishness. The devil is 
selfishness personified. 

There is human nature in men and angel nature 
in devils, and the two are not so unlike as we often 
suppose. Both natures were created by God, and 
both were created holy and happy ; both kept not 
their first estate in which they were created ; both 
sinned and fell, and the earth is cursed by the sin- 
ning of both acting in concert, or rather, man act- 
ing at the suggestion and under the leadership of 
the devil and his angels. 

Wealth and power, the reward and fruits of self- 
ishness in a strong man, beget, as a sure consequence, 
vanity and pride. So Paul, in writing to Timothy, 
speaks of pride as being the sin into which the 
devil fell. 

And now we inquire, What are Satan's motives 
in disarranging the world and tempting men to 
sin and finally lose their souls? It does him no 
good. It makes hell no more comfortable or bear- 
able. As far as we can learn, hell is too full now. 
Nevertheless, Satan goes on with an industrious 



34 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

determination of purpose that has nothing sur- 
passing it known to men. What makes him so in- 
tent on tempting men to sin ? The only explana- 
tion to be found is comparing it with perplexities 
of the same kind or nature, and making a classifica- 
tion which we call an explanation. 

There is a parallel case, which I hesitate to use, 
fearing my gentle reader may think I am indulging 
in coarseness. But I beg you to consider that I am 
not accountable for facts in the world. I must be 
true to things as they are, and as I find them. 
When I was a boy, I used to watch a great hog, 
which had grown so fat his legs would not hold 
him, and he stood on his belly to eat corn and drink 
swill. When the corn was eaten up and the swill 
drank, he would squeal for more. I thought the 
thing most needed for his comfort was a few good 
doses of anti-fat and vigorous fasting. What did 
he want with more fat ? He had so much he was 
uncomfortable, and every pound he gained made 
him more miserable. But he had an appetite which 
was never satisfied, and the only relief it found 
was in eating. But there was no sense in his con- 
duct. 

Then we find the same disposition in the man 
who has all the money he has any need of to pro- 
vide amply for his family and protect them in case 
of disease, old age and all ordinary mishaps, grab- 
bing and grasping for more. When a man has all 
he can make use of, the more he gets gives him no 
more comfort or enjoyment in life, but adds more 



THE SIN OF THE DEVIL. 35 

care and burden, increases the gnawing appetite 
for the greed and gain of wealth, and life is made 
more uncomfortable. Men go on amassing wealth 
with as little reason for it, as the devils tempt men 
to sin, and adding a burden to life which is as use- 
less and senseless as the great hog's fat. The hog 
eating and squealing for more after he had too 
much fat already, the devils tempting men to sin, 
and the man striving for more money than is meat, 
are all inspired by one and the same nature, and we 
can only explain the reason for any one of the 
three doing as he does, by classing him with the 
other two. 

When the Lord cast the devils out of the poor 
possessed Gadarene, they besought Him, that they 
might go into the herd of swine feeding near by. 
I think this was for the reason that the devils could 
find no other animal so near like themselves as hogs. 
But when they went into the swine, the hogs being 
so well charged with selfishness already by their 
own natures, the entering of a devil into them 
made a double portion of selfishness and brought 
the logical conclusion to its possessors immediately, 
viz., self-destruction — "and the herd ran violently 
down a steep place into the sea (they were about 
two thousand), and were choked in the sea." Self- 
ishness is suicidal, and while it damns its possessor, 
it makes him a curse to all with whom he comes in 
contact. 

Here we see the truth of that most beautiful par- 
able, "The Prodigal Son." It was very wicked for 



7,6 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the younger son to spend on harlots all that portion 
of his father's goods coming to him, and good soci- 
ety is shocked at his conduct. Yet in doing so he 
sinned after the manner of men, and it was in the 
exercise of the highest and holiest passion of man, 
only he indulged it in an unlawful way. The pas- 
sion which moved him to sin was placed in him by 
God Himself, and man would not be a man with- 
out it 

But the older brother sinned in the exercise of 
selfishness, and its fruits — stinginess and jealousy — 
stand out in the narrative. The elder brother's sin 
and John's was the exercise of a nature God never 
put in man, and reveals a disposition in them which 
is satanic and in direct antagonism with God's high- 
est law: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self: I am the Lord."* God is our father. These 
sinned not like men ; they sinned like devils. 

Jesus Christ came to the world to purify pol- 
luted men, to heal sin-sick, depraved human nature, 
and to forgive the sins of men ; but Jesus did not 
come to the world to reform and forgive devils ; 
not so much that He had not the desire of doing 
good to all, as the impossibility which lay in the 
way of ever helping selfish, self-willed, proud 
devils. They are too proud and self-willed to re- 
pent, and too selfish to be touched with the power 
of love — brotherly — the supreme and commanding 
character of Jesus. 

* Lev. xix., 18. 



CHAPTER III, 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 

HEN God had finished the creation of the 
world, the animals, fish, birds, trees and 
plants, it is written : " And God saw everything 
that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."* 
It is said in the verse before this, " I have given 
every green herb for meat, and it was so."f God 
never made a thorn or thistle, nor did He make an 
animal or plant or tree or fish that was not for the 
meat, or in other words, for the use of man. 

But, when Satan came into the world, he started 
up all the evil that is in it, which the Scriptures 
call vanity. Thence came up the thorns, thistles 
and briars ; and for this reason the animals became 
ravenous, rapacious and bloodthirsty. This was 
not done by the will of nature, but by reason of 
him who subjected it. The world is burdened with 
the sins of Satan, and he probably annoyed and in- 
terrupted God's plans long before the creation of 
man. At least, it was from the time that Michael 
cast him down upon the earth at his fall. 

Paul, writing to the Romans, says : " For the 
earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the 

* Gen. i., 31. f Gen. i., 30. 

37 



38 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was 
subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by- 
reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the 
creation itself also shall be delivered from the bond- 
age of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the 
children of God. For we know that the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
until now."* 

All nature is groaning and travailing in pain 
under the curse of Satan's thralldom. The world 
inanimate as well as animate is waiting and ear- 
nestly expecting the time when man shall cease his 
selfish sinning and be ruled by brotherly love. 

In the creation of man, God had in His plans the 
redemption of the world from the power of Satan's 
bondage. For the use of man, "the Lord God 
planted a garden eastward in Eden ; and there he 
put the man whom he had formed. And out of the 
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that 
is pleasant to the sight and good for food ; the tree 
of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree 
of knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord God 
took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to 
dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God com- 
manded the man, saying, Of every tree of the gar- 
den thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it : 
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die."f In all this garden there was not a 

* Rom viii., 19-22.— R. V. f Gen. ii., 8, 9, 15, 16, 17. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 39 

thorn, thistle, briar or an animal that had a breath 
of Satan's selfish nature in his body or was un- 
tamed. The earth was Satan's territory by usurpa- 
tion, and so he was the prince of the world. Had 
man not fallen, and had he held the garden of Eden 
for God, the devil's territory would have been in- 
vaded ; and the work of the recaption of the world 
would have been successfully begun. As years came 
to men, they would have been more and more con- 
firmed in holiness. As years came and went, the 
race would have increased, and for the enlarged 
number of men the garden would have been ex- 
tended with the increasing needs until it had cov- 
ered the whole earth. The prince of darkness 
would have been driven back off the earth and the 
creation delivered from the bondage of his curse. 

When man was created, he was placed on the 
same footing with the angels of heaven. They were 
holy and happy, and had all the good things of 
heaven they could make any use of, or in any way 
needed for their fullest enjoyment. "And God 
said, Let us make man in our own image, after 
our likeness ; and let them have dominion over the 
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over 
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."* 
"And God said, Behold, I have given you every 
herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the 
earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a 

* Gen. i., 26. 



4-0 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat. And 
to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of 
the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the 
earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green 
herb for meat."* 

For every want there was an abundant supply 
provided, and God told them, " Of every tree of 
the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not 
eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die."f Here is the principle this 
early laid down, that there is a limit to a man tak- 
ing of the good things of the earth, no matter how 
he may do it ; not even by the simple and innocent 
movement of the hand in reaching up and taking it. 
And God announced to them that from the high 
throne of righteousness the penalty for so doing 
was death. Adam and Eve saw the animals out- 
side of the garden killing and devouring each 
other. They saw their quarreling, they heard their 
agonizing groans in pain and death. Death being 
the most impressive and striking feature, they called 
it all death ; and this is without doubt the impres- 
sion made upon their minds. 

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was no 
arbitrary enactment of God ; but there was in it 
the great fundamental principle underlying the 
whole relation of men socially and in the business 
world. It is the principle, if obeyed, that has more 

* Gen. i., 29, 30. f Gen. ii., 16, 17. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 4 1 

than alchemic powers to brighten the world. It is 
the principle that, if disobeyed, is selfishness, which 
lost us Eden, and from which came sin and death 
and all else ill to men. It is the principle that when 
a man has enough, he ought to be satisfied, and un- 
less selfish, he will be satisfied. Between the tak- 
ing of the forbidden fruit and eating it, and the 
not taking of it and not eating it, lies the border 
line between sin and holiness. Over that line is 
the. lust of ambition arid pride, which has been the 
author of all forms of despotism, oppression and 
slavery, the selfishness of wealth and the greediness 
of monopolies. If man will not be satisfied with 
that which is convenient for him, but must be ever 
reaching out for more than is meat, he is unfit for 
the kingdom of heaven on earth, like Satan was 
unfit for the kingdom of heaven above. Had Adam 
and Eve left the forbidden fruit alone, and added 
to this, had they done it over the solicitations of 
Satan, they would have shown themselves fit for 
self-government, that they were not greedy, that 
they would love their neighbor as themselves, and 
so were fit for the kingdom of brotherly love on 
earth and fit for the kingdom of heaven above, from 
which Satan had been cast out. But in their tak- 
ing of the forbidden fruit, they revealed their self- 
ish, greedy natures, grasping for more than was 
meat and more than they needed. They in that act 
chose the disposition of the devil in preference to 
the sweet spirit of God. The fond ties of the fam- 
ily relation were soon severed, and, instead of 



42 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

brotherly love, the first man born into the world 
killed his younger brother from pure selfish mo- 
tives. 

When man sinned, God's rampart on earth for 
the establishment of brotherly love was lost and 
taken by Satan and selfishness. Man had chosen 
the devil as his counselor and leader, instead of 
obeying God's commands. 

The only power God ever permits to hold Him 
back is the refusal of free agents to co-operate with 
Him in His works of righteousness and love. " I 
have called, and ye refused ; I have stretched out 
my hand, and no man regarded ; but ye have set at 
naught my counsel, and would none of my re- 
proof,"* is God's own complaint against man. By 
special intervention, God had freed the ground in- 
side the garden of Eden from the curse of Satan, 
to fit it for the habitation of sinless man ; but when 
man sinned and by his own choice took upon him 
the curse of Satan, there was no further need of 
the garden being kept, so God withdrew His hand, 
and it became cursed again. The rest of the earth, 
which would have been freed from the curse had 
not man sinned, must now from man's sin remain 
under the curse until Shiloh come. So God said to 
Adam : " Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; thorns 
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee."f 

The argument by which Satan persuaded Eve to 
eat of the forbidden fruit, was that she should be- 

* Prov. i., 24, 25. f Gen. iii., 17, 18. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 43 

come as one of the gods. What relation there 
could be between the eating of the forbidden fruit 
and an increase in knowledge and wisdom, might 
seem hard to see indeed. But do we not find here 
the same principle that there is in the large ac- 
quisition of property and possession of money? 
What connection is there between a man having a 
deed to a million, or no matter how many millions, 
and exceptionally great wisdom and knowledge? 
Yet the rich accord to themselves superior talents, 
superiority of class, superior blood, over the poor, 
and look upon themselves almost as another species 
of beings. What is stranger still, it takes an effort 
on the part of many of the poor and common peo • 
pie not to concede them this fact and agree with 
them. For, some way or other, the world is always 
prone to look up to the rich man, as if he were a 
little god in wisdom and everything else. Men will 
work and worry the very lives out of themselves 
merely to pile up fortunes, and they pile up these 
fortunes for no other reason than to make them- 
selves as gods — to have power, to be great in their 
chosen line, unless they follow the low instincts of 
hogs. 

The deification of self, the pampering of self in 
riches, always means lawlessness. The ambition of 
the rich is to command, to own and control prop- 
erty, which carries with it the government of men. 
Theirs is to govern, and not to be governed ; to 
dictate, and not to be dictated to. The natures of 
the common people are more pliable ; they are 



44 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

more considerate for the rights of others, and the 
helplessness and defencelessness of the poor make 
them not so formidable a foe to the public wel- 
fare. But the rich override law from their natures 
of selfishness ; and their imagined deification of 
themselves makes them think it is their unquestion- 
able right, and their position gives them power to 
transgress and then escape the chastisements of the 
strong arm of the law, which their conduct de- 
serves. 

The temperance and social reformer has ever 
found his unconquerable foe to be in the trans- 
gressions of the rich ; and from their high position 
the baleful influence goes percolating down through 
every strata of society. As the power of wealth 
increases, the influence of the common people 
wanes, whom Jesus told us are "the light of the 
world."* A tenfold greater necessity than all else is 
for a reformation directed squarely against every 
form of selfishness, and especially selfishness in 
high places. This will be laying the axe at 
the root of the tree, as John the Baptist tells us is 
Jesus' design. Then, and not till then, will it come 
to pass, " every plant which my heavenly father 
hath not planted shall be rooted up."f Wealth in 
the hands of the few, together with its necessary 
resultant oppression of the masses, is indissolubly 
linked together with ignorance, vice, crime and 
debauchery. While, on the other hand, if there is 

* Math, t?., 14 f Math, xv., 13. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 45 

before the masses an opportunity of increasing com- 
forts and prosperity, it is certain to lead to greater 
intelligence and a higher standard of morality. 

In the creation, God distinctly stated that He gave 
to man the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air and 
everything that moveth upon the earth, and the 
fruit of every tree and every green herb as the meat 
for man. Over these He gave man dominion like 
He held Himself, as if He relinquished His dominion 
to man ; so in the image of God created He him. 
Man — the people — has the divine right to all that 
is in the world and to rule over it for his benefit 
and comfort. But no class of men has a superior 
right over others, and they who take or hold such 
power have it only from a title given to them by 
Satan, and in doing it they are imitating the devil 
and in league with him. 

Man's highest interests are to break the reigning 
power of Satan in the world. That man is foolish, 
an enemy to himself, to his kind, and even to the 
brute creation, who is not ready to make any sacri- 
fice and use every available means to make advance- 
ment towards this end. It was a great mistake 
and sin for Adam and Eve to put themselves and 
the human race under the power of Satan, leaving 
the world at his control ; but they did not foresee 
the awful end. Now, if their transgression in 
their blindness was a sin, which brought upon them 
such bitter woe, "of what sorer punishment, sup- 
pose ye, he shall be thought worthy,"* who, with all 

* Heb. x., 29. 



46 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the history of six thousand years of pain, suffering 
and woe laid open before him as the result of fol- 
lowing Satan rather than God, shall go on greedily 
binding the world in Satan's chains of selfishness, 
entailing upon it misery, vice, debauchery, crime, 
nakedness, hunger and death ? Seeing he " hath 
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath done 
despite unto the spirit of grace." 

When Jesus Christ shall have slain selfishness 
in the hearts of men, the Goliath of sin will have 
fallen, and all other forms of wickedness will beat 
a hasty retreat, as the Philistine army did when 
their giant was slain by the son of Jesse, 
David, the ruddy shepherd boy. Then will the 
power of Satan be broken upon earth ; and the 
good things of nature which he now hides from 
our eyes will flow out in such abundance that peace 
and plenty will abound for all men. Then will the 
prophecy of Isaiah be fulfilled, that " The wolf and 
the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat 
straw like the bullock ; and dust shall be the ser- 
pent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all 
my holy mountain, saith the Lord."* 

The rule, extent and dominion of property among 
men is "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread till thou return unto the ground, "f Man is to 
hold as his domain that which he gains by honest 
service and keeps by prudence and economy. 
Gathering this world's goods by this means stimu- 
lates a man in mind and body and tends to purify 

♦Is. lxv., 25. f Gen. iii., 19. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 47 

his soul ; it is of such a man the Scriptures say, 
" The hand of the diligent maketh rich."* 

But, when a man begins to gather in more than 
is a fair return for his services, to seize and hold 
advantageous positions, monopolizing the good 
things of the world, and is in the race for wealth, 
he is reaching forth his hand and taking of the for- 
bidden fruit. When a man makes up his mind that 
he will be rich, the day he does, love — brotherly 
love — dies within him. " Woe unto you that are 
rich."f "But they that will be rich fall into tempta- 
tion and a snare, and into many foolish and hurt- 
ful lusts, which drown men in destruction and per- 
dition. For the love of money is the root of all 
evil ; which, while some have coveted after, they 
have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves 
through with many sorrows."]; 

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit that they 
might become like gods, but in eating it they be- 
came like devils. They thought it was good, but 
God knew it was evil. Men labor and strive for 
wealth to become as gods ; but, in so doing, they 
imitate the devil ; and, as their riches increase, they 
become more and more like him, till they reflect his 
image in all their stingy, selfish ways of life. They 
drift farther and farther away from God, from all 
that is high and noble in humanity and true man- 
hood, until, blinded in vanity and bound in selfish- 
ness, they become a curse to all within their influ- 

* Prov x., 4. f Luke vi., 24. % 1 Tim. vi., 9, 10. 



40 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ence, as Satan always has been and is to the world 
at large. 

Of all the sins men commit against us, there is 
none so great, so far as this world goes, as that 
which takes away our opportunities for making the 
most out of life. Whenever a man takes more to 
himself than is needed for meat, he is taking some- 
body's opportunity, and somebody suffers from his 
transgression of greed — he is eating the forbidden 
fruit. It was ordained in the beginning, "Of 
every tree of the garden thou may est freely eat."* 
God means every man to have a full, abundant liv- 
ing, and to enjoy the good things of the earth. In 
order that it might be so, He placed upon the sin of 
greed a check in announcing the prohibition, " but 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
shalt not eat of it."f He also warned them of the 
curse that would inevitably follow upon their trans- 
gression, saying, "For in the day that thou eatest 
thereof, thou shalt surely die." — Idei7i. 

Self-government and civil liberty is every man 
having his equitable portion of dominion over 
property and the work of his hands, as well as 
equal rights of suffrage in the management of the 
commonwealth. The small tradesman, the farmer, 
the man owning and working his shop, are men 
living with the opportunities of developing the 
image which God has placed upon man. 

The man who steals our money, leaves us the 
opportunity to gather up again and regain that 

* Gen. ii., 16. fGen.ii.,17. 



THE SIN IN EDEN. 49 

which we lost, but he who robs us of our oppor- 
tunity of making the most out of life, strands us on 
shoals amid barren rocks. The former steals the 
fruit which we have picked from the trees in the 
orchard of the Lord ; but the latter assumes pos- 
session of the orchard and will not let us pick the 
fruit, except by his permission and that he receive 
a large part of the fruits we gather. 

" So God drove out the man; and he placed at 
the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a 
flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the 
way of the tree of life,"* lest man "take also of the 
tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." j The fear 
of death holds kings in check, and in all events 
sooner or later makes them lay down the scepter of 
their power. In the short time of a quarter of a 
century of business, the plutocrat runs up to fabu- 
lous wealth. Then, with this advantage gained 
over the lines of trade and other men, if there be 
added a hundred years or more, what would be the 
limit of his power? But to have let men live on 
and on the thousands of years since the creation of 
man, the devil's few agents would hold the world 
groaning under their iron yoke with a power that 
could not be broken. But with death as it is now, 
just as the plutocrat's sails are fully spread, and 
everything appears to be going finely before a 
spanking breeze, while he is preparing to pull down 
his barns and build greater, he hears the words : 
"Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required 

* Gen. iii., 24. f Gen. iii., 22. 



50 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

of thee : then whose shall those things be 
which thou hast provided?'"* He dies, the world 
breathes easier, and men are more comfortable be- 
cause he is out of it. So God drove them out of 
the garden of Eden, and placed a naming sword 
which turned every way to keep the way of the 
tree, lest man take also of the tree of life, and eat, 
and live forever. 

* Luke xii., 20. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 

S SOON as Eden was lost, God informed 
1@&§l Satan, saying: "I will put enmity be- 
tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel." Although Satan had gained 
a point and a victory over heaven, God gave him 
to understand it was only temporary and in the end 
he would be utterly overthrown. Man had turned 
his back upon God and joined the forces of Jehovah's 
arch-enemy ; but not for one moment did God forsake 
man or abandon His purpose of finally redeeming 
and saving him from the power of Satan's curse, 
under which he had put himself. All the way 
down through the ages of the patriarchs, the kings 
and the prophets, this was the purpose of God's 
dealings with men, till at last in the fulness of time, 
Shiloh came. 

Jesus came to the earth to regain that which was 
lost in Eden — to do all that would have been done 
in reclaiming the world had not man fallen and 
sinned. From the time Jesus was born into the 
world in Bethlehem, and the Judean " shepherds 
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their 

51 



52 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

flock by night, heard a multitude of the heavenly- 
host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward 
men,"* Satan knew the last great contest had be- 
gun. He watched every movement of the child 
Jesus. He watched Him as a young man in His 
daily rounds of life, as He worked with the axe and 
the adze, the awl and the line. But when Satan 
saw Him baptized of John, and heard John so mod- 
estly and humbly yielding preference to Jesus, and 
saw Him as He went up straightway out of the 
water; and lo ! the heavens were opened to Him, 
and the spirit of God descending like a dove, and 
lighting upon Him, " and lo ! a voice from heaven, 
saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased,"f ne cou ld restrain his wrath no longer. 
Therefore, seizing Jesus, he led Him into the wil- 
derness, or, as Mark puts it: "Immediately the 
spirit driveth him into the wilderness, and he was 
there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of 
Satan, and was with the wild beasts."]; During 
these forty days, Satan compelled Him to fast, and 
starved Him, while he tormented every muscle and 
nerve in His body as worst he could. Jesus suf- 
fered it to be so, for it was needful that His flesh 
should feel every pain and temptation that sorrow- 
ing human nature can ever know. He was tempted 
and tried in all points as we are. " For in that he 
himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to 

* Luke ii., 8, 13, 14. f Math, iii., 16, 17. $ Mark i., 12, 13. 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 53 

succor them that are tempted."* " For we have 
not an high priest which cannot be touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin."f 

Luke tells us : "In those days he did eat nothing : 
and when they were ended, he afterward hun- 
gered. "J With all this fasting and worry, how 
weak, weary and hungry Jesus must have been. 
Satan, taking this as his opportunity, gathered up 
all his strength and plied Jesus with three succes- 
sive temptations, which had a delicacy of insight 
and an originality of conception that far transcends 
the range of the invention of the most powerful 
mind of man. Satan had found that force and co- 
ercion would not avail with Jesus. He now poses 
in the appearance of one of earth's most honorable, 
influential and greatest men — certainly not in any 
hideous form. With all the influence and impres- 
siveness of wealth, intelligence and refinement that 
it is possible to bring to bear upon a man, Satan 
said to Jesus, " If thou be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made bread. But Jesus 
answered and said, It is written, man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God."§ These stones were, per- 
haps, those siliceous accretions which assume the 
exact shape of little loaves of bread, and the pains 
of hunger were stimulated by the added torture of 
a quick imagination. 

The temptation was an appeal to the appetite, 

•Heb. ii., 18. f Heb. iv., 15. t Luke iv., 2. § Math. iv.. 3, 4. 



54 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and affected directly that part of a man which is 
animal. But Jesus resisted the demands of His own 
body, the craving of hunger, showing His perfect 
unselfishness in that He would not work a miracle 
to relieve His own sufferings ; while we find Him 
always ready to relieve the sufferings of others and 
without hesitation would work a miracle to do it. 
Herein lies a great lesson for men, and a lesson en- 
forced by the greatest example. Man should not 
be guided by his lower nature. There are higher 
principles of life than material sustenance. Man, 
it is true, is an animal ; but man is more than an 
animal. Man is in the image of God. His high- 
est being is his godlike nature ; and he is moving 
in his highest sphere when the animal is acting in 
obedience to the divine life within him. 

Jesus also, in this answer, dealt Satan a terrific 
blow for his selfishness, and Satan understood it so. 
He knew where the quotation was taken from. It 
came from the place where God had fed the poor 
Israelitish emancipated slaves with manna from 
heaven. Satan held the idea, if a working man 
had enough bread to eat to keep him strong and 
coarse clothes to keep him warm, he had no right to 
complain, if the rich did take all the rest. But 
Jesus told him that man should not live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God. Satan knew that this meant man ; 
not a few men, but man should have a right to 
everything which God had created by the word of 
His mouth, and that by the power of the word of 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 55 

God all things were created which do exist. Satan's 
selfishness received a severe rebuke, both in Jesus' 
conduct and words, so he changed the method of 
his attack. 

The next time Satan tempted Jesus was when 
they were standing on the pinnacle of the temple. 
Probably this was the roof of the royal porch, on 
the southern side of the temple, which looked down 
sheer into the valley of the Kedron below it, from 
a height so dizzy that, according to Josephus, if 
anyone ventured to look down, his head would 
swim at the great depth. " And Satan said unto 
Jesus, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, 
for it is written, He shall give his angels charge 
concerning thee ; and in their hands they shall 
bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy 
foot against a stone."* The temptation here is 
spiritual pride, the dignity of life. It is in the 
desire to be considered personally and officially as 
good as we really are and deserve. It is not to 
have our good deeds evil spoken of, nor to be 
deemed impostors. This second temptation strikes 
a higher order of our nature than the former one. 
It was also strengthened by a passage of Scripture, 
which Satan most ingeniously wove into his pow- 
erful argument to make Jesus feel, if He did not 
cast Himself down from the pinnacle, He would 
appear to doubt the Scriptures, and give good 
grounds for men to think He was not the Son of 
God. The color of the presentation of the tempta- 

*Math. iv., 6. 



56 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

tion was, that Satan was trying to help Jesus, by- 
causing Him to do an act which would demonstrate 
to the world that He was indeed the Son of God. 
And have not thousands of even good-meaning 
people gone into this temptation ? Does not the 
history of the world show that thousands of men 
who would not sink into the slough of sensuality, 
have substituted pride of profession, obedience to 
the commandments of men taught for doctrine, 
enforced sanctimonious airs, strained conscience 
and voluntary sufferings for unselfishness and love 
to men in their actions, and so cast themselves down 
into ruin from the pinnacle of spiritual pride ? 

But Jesus withstood it all, and " said unto him, 
It is'written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
God."* The place from which Jesus took this 
passage and its relations there made it another 
blow dealt to Satan in the same place He had struck 
him before. The passage He quoted from is in 
Deuteronomy, where the Lord was warning the 
Israelites while in the wilderness not to forget their 
hateward to the plutocratic oppression of the 
Pharaohs, and their liberation by the hand of 
Jehovah, when they came into the land of plenty 
m Canaan ; lest they turn to be selfish and become 
oppressors themselves as the Pharaohs were, and 
so go after the gods of the heathen. The gods of 
idolatry were all gods of force, power or wealth, 
and their resultants, lust, pride, cruelty and the like. 
Jehovah was the only God of brotherly love. And 

*Math. iv., 7. 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 57 

it was now becoming apparent to Satan's mind that 
in Jesus was a clearer revelation of pure, unselfish 
love than the world had ever seen. By the authority 
of the law and the prophets, God's anger, or fury, 
or jealousy, or indignation, was never kindled 
except as against these gods of idolatry, whom 
Jesus put into one great class and called them 
mammon. 

Foiled a second time, Satan gathered up all his 
powers and staked everything on one splendid cast, 
into which he threw his entire strength and being. 
These temptations gathered in power and influence 
as one followed after another, showing that Satan 
holds heavy reserve forces while he contends with 
men. But here he called into exercise every power. It 
was his Waterloo, which would decide his fate in 
his relation to men. So he unsheathed the longest 
sword of selfishness, or mammon, and wielded it to 
its entire length. It is written : " Again, the devil 
taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 
and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, 
and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All 
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down 
and worship me."* The meaning of the word 
here translated worship does not mean, in the orig- 
inal Greek, religious homage or adoration, but is 
the primary meaning of our word worship as given 
in Webster's dictionary — " to respect, to honor, to 
treat with civil reverence." It was customary in 
those days to fall down in the presence of one's 

* Math, iv., 8, 9. 



58 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

superiors. So what Satan asked of Jesus was that 
He would act in compliance with Satan's selfish 
ways, and give up His principle of love, which 
proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of 
the whole human family. The Roman emperor, 
Tiberius, was at that hour the most powerful of 
men living. He was, in fact, the absolute, undis- 
puted, deified ruler and, in a word, the possessor 
of all that was the fairest and richest in the king- 
doms of the earth. He was not only a political 
ruler, but so far as right and advantage could be 
had from property, he was the owner of the world. 
The Roman empire had been built up by wicked 
wars, carried on for the gratification of the selfish 
ambition of men, and the result of all this concen- 
tration of capital and power was held by Tiberius, 
an old man of seventy-one years, one of the most 
selfish and, at the same time, the most miserable of 
men that history gives any account of. All this 
centralization of wealth and power had been at 
Satan's suggestion and in execution of his plans, 
and while the Roman empire was to him his glory, 
it was, in fact, a monument to his shame. Only 
the few were well supplied. The wisest scholars 
held that the common people had no souls and were 
little better than brutes and dogs. While the phi- 
losophers dreamed sublimely of the great beyond, 
their philosophy did nothing for the masses, but 
left them wallowing in ignorance, vice, debauchery, 
squalor and cruel poverty. Satan held the world 
in his grasp. For four hundred years the prophets 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 59 

had been silent, and never was there a time when 
Satan's claim was less disputed as the prince of this 
world. 

It has been said : Why did Satan not know 
better than to tempt the Son of God, the Almighty 
God, even if he was in flesh ? He might have 
known he would fail, and could not make 
Him sin and fall. But it must be remembered that 
there is nothing which so inflates a devil and puffs 
him up, as with men, like power gained and held 
by strength of wealth and great possessions. When 
wealth gathers around men, they set at naught the 
counsels of God, and God permitting them to be 
free agents, they can run a long way in defiance of 
His almighty power. There is nothing which so 
inflames egotism and vanity as the possession of 
wealth. But never was there a man who had such 
mighty holdings and the hardening of so many 
years as Satan now had, neither were there any 
ever more inflated with their success than he. His 
proud feelings told him there was nothing he could 
not do and accomplish. 

Then Satan, like men, had an overweening conceit 
of the power of money. He held, as men do, the 
motto, "Money will do anything, if you put up 
enough of it." He thought that while some were 
hard to buy, yet every man had his price, and could 
be bought if the offer were large enough. He knew 
the task before him was the hardest he ever had and 
was the greatest he ever would encounter. So he 
thought he would put the figure high enough to 



6o JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

reach anything in human flesh. He flung the 
world at Jesus' feet. While the world was at that 
time in Tiberius' hands — and perhaps a more faith- 
ful servant to Satan a master never had — yet the 
interests of Tiberius would never stand a moment 
in the way of Satan's success in business. He 
could quickly infuse a disease into his body and 
end his life ; and he would have done it without 
hesitation had the offer been accepted. What did 
Satan care for cutting off the head of a servant 
who had given him his largest greatness, if higher 
attainments could thereby be gained. Gratitude 
had long since died in his dark soul, from selfishness. 
When the rich man's interests come in conflict with 
the interests of his employes, the wealthy man hav- 
ing the power makes it customary that his own 
interests must be taken care of, even if it sends the 
employes and their families into the streets beg- 
ging. So Satan said: "All these things will I 
give thee ;"* and he had the power to deliver the 
property, and doubtless intended to give Jesus the 
visible kingdoms of the world, if he could only re- 
main as the prince of the power of the air. 

Here is the temptation into which the mighty 
and giant-brained men of all ages have fallen. It 
is the temptation of the great, the renowned and 
the wealthy. Had Jesus yielded, Satan would 
still have allowed Him to fill the role of the Son of 
God, the promised Messiah. In doing so, Jesus 
would have redeemed Israel from the Roman yoke 

* Math. iv., 9. 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 6l 

and put the world under the rule of Judah. He 
would have set up the kingdom as Israel had long 
waited and watched for. It would have met the 
expectations, not only of the scribes and the Phari- 
sees, but of the common people, His twelve whom 
He chose for His disciples, together with the mother 
of James and John. The temple would have rung 
with loud huzzas arid hosannas for Him, and it is a 
question if there would then have been a dissenting 
voice in all Israel against Him. 

But Jesus " saith unto him, Get thee hence, 
Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."* 
This answer is taken from the same chapter from 
which the one before was taken, and only a verse 
or two preceding it, which makes it the third blow 
that stuck Satan in the same place, viz., his self- 
ishness and his plutocratic doings. Each wound 
Satan received was deadly driven into the heart of 
his nature and very being, and the devil "departed 
from him for a season, "f 

While Satan was in the height of his glory and 
ambition, his downfall came. Jesus met him, baf- 
fled him, and drove him back, with all his tempta- 
tions, at the gate of every emotion. Never were 
temptations so cunningly laid, charged with such 
power, or urged with such intensity of determina- 
tion, or handled with so deep sagacity and shrewd- 
ness, but they did not enter the noble mind of Jesus 
or influence His unselfish soul. Jesus fought the 

* Math, iv., 10. f Luke iv, 13. 



D2 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

battle clad in the armor of human nature and free 
will, which has been hacked and riven of men by 
many cruel blows in all ages. But out of the dark 
temptations of the wilderness, as well as from 
those revealed, He rose victorious and pure, for 
every temptation floated as trackless over His sin- 
less soul as the cloud wreath of a summer day floats 
over the blue heavens, whose fair brow it cannot 
stain. 

Jesus gave the lie to the maxim that " Every 
man has his price ;" and mammon learned that day 
there was one man on the earth the world could not 
buy. Since that time, many have followed Jesus' 
example, and in His name have resisted. the tempta- 
tions of selfishness and declined the power of 
wealth. His spirit will be the spirit of men when 
His kingdom is set up on the earth, selfishness will 
play no part in the conduct of men ; brotherly love 
will reign supreme, and the law will be : " All 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and 
the prophets "* and Jesus Christ. These tempta- 
tions are no occult, hidden emotions of the human 
soul, but they are those things which fill the tide of 
human affections and the experiences of men 

From that hour, Satan was wild with desperation 
and rage. The devils came out from behind the 
veil between mortals and the spirit world, walked 
and talked with people, entered into and possessed 
the sons of men, and even brutes. On all hands, 

* Math, vii., 12. 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS. 63 

wherever Jesus went, they were tormenting men 
in most cruel ways, and often so desperate and 
foolish as to defeat their own ends and purposes. 

The sin for which Satan was cast out of heaven, 
the sin by which our first parents fell and lost 
their first estate, and the character of the tempta- 
tions with which the devil tried Jesus, increasing 
and enlarging to the last, where it stood out in 
awful significance, are all one and the same, viz., 
the selfishness, and pride, and vanity of wealth, the 
parent of all oppression or cruelty, and the by far 
greater part of crime. 

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
only shalt thou serve. Men become like the gods 
that they worship and those whom they respect 
and honor. God is love. No constant, abiding, 
well-poised brotherly love can be expected which 
does not derive its power from God. In this reply 
of Jesus was the unconditional affirmation of the 
reign of brotherly love among men, and in His con- 
duct was the absolute negation of all forms of 
selfishness and the abrogation of Satan's power on 
earth. In this brave stand of Jesus against the 
strongest of temptations, in which He withstood 
the sword of selfishness wielded in its entire length, 
He turned the tide of battle in the world ; sin was 
there repulsed, and mammon began his retreat, and 
the conquest of brotherly love was begun. Here 
that which was lost in Eden began to be regained, 
and the beginning of the end was begun. " To 
this end was I born," said Jesus, "and for this 



64 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

cause came I into the world, that I should bear wit- 
ness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth 
heareth my voice."* From that time the poor 
began to have the gospel preached to them. 

The ministry of Jesus stood between two great 
mountain ranges of temptations or severe trials. 
The forty days in the wilderness and these tempta- 
tions stood at the gateway, while the passion week, 
including His last public address in the temple, 
Gethsemane and the crucifixion, stood at the exit. 

We have now entered the gateway, and we will 
travel with Him over the great plain of truth which 
lies between, and pass the mountains on the other 
side. 

* John xviii., 37. 



CHAPTER V. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 

#OD seemed to fit up Palestine for the chil- 
dren of Israel as a second garden of Eden. 
The grape clusters grew so large at Eshcol, that 
"they bare it between two upon a staff."* The 
pomegranates and figs were in proportion. In fact, 
the land was so fertile that it seemed to be " a land 
of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that 
spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat 
and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pome- 
granates ; a land of oil olive and honey ; a land 
wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, 
thou shalt not lack anything in it ; a land whose 
stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest 
dig brass."! 

God gave Moses laws which were simply the 
enlargement of the Ten Commandments ; and had 
these laws been obeyed, there could no strong 
monopolies have grown up in Palestine, neither 
could there have been the rich, to oppress the poor. 
Had the laws been observed, there would have been 
neither rich nor poor in Palestine. There would 
have been differences, and the industrious and 

* Num. xiii., 23. f Deut. -viii., 7-9. 
65 



66 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

economical would have had more than the improvi- 
dent and the less industrious. But they would have 
all been the common people. Such abundance 
flowed into this country as never was the lot of any 
nation before nor since. The people foolishly and 
against God's will threw down the patriarchal form 
of government and demanded a king. Neverthe- 
less, God raised up David the king, a godly man 
whose rule was emphatically a government for the 
people. The result was that in his son's time, 
Solomon's, silver was as plentiful as stones on the 
streets, and Solomon put enough gold in the temple 
to enrich a nation. 

When the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem 
and saw all these riches, "there was no more spirit 
in her, and she said to the king, It was a true 
report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and 
thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words 
until I came, and mine eyes had seen it; and, 
behold, the half was not told me : thy wisdom and 
prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard."* 

Palestine was the crossway between the Occident 
and orient. Merchants from Egypt must pass through 
it on their way to Syria and other northern points. 
The nations of the earth paid tribute to her. 
The kings of Tarshish and the isles of the sea 
brought presents. 

Palestine is one hundred and forty miles long, by 
about seventy miles wide, varying from twenty-five 
to ninety miles. The deep valley at the Jordan, of 

*1 Kings x., 5-7. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 67 

the Dead Sea, is 1,300 feet below the level of the 
sea, and the mountains of Lebanon rise to an alti- 
tude of 9,200 feet above the sea, making a variation 
of altitude of 10,500 feet. The consequence is that 
among the fruits and animals which it contains, 
there are representatives of the flora and the fauna 
of every other region on the globe, from the Arctic 
circle to the tropics. The plants of Northern 
Europe nourish on Lebanon, those of Central 
Europe at the level of Jerusalem and Carmel ; 
while those of the West Indies are found on the 
plains of Jericho and the Jordan. Some of the 
animals represent the denizens of the Alpine desert, 
and others the fauna of the plains of India and the 
rivers of Africa. Thus the country supplied the 
natural symbolism that would appear more or less 
intelligible to men of every nation. 

For one thousand years after Solomon, monopo- 
lies grew and rich .men flourished. Their cities were 
sacked and their people carried away captive. For 
six hundred years the faithful prophets of God 
warned, reproved, wept and threatened. But their 
voices became silent, and a prophet was not heard for 
four hundred years, till the rousing voice of John the 
Baptist began ringing up and down the Jordan, 
and saying, "Repent ye; for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand."* 

Over all the sins of the people God kept the land 
fertile till Jesus came. We are told when Jesus 
saw a fig tree that had no figs on it, He cursed it 

*Math. iii., 2. 



68 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and it withered away. A fruitless tree had no 
business in Palestine. The little Sea of Galilee 
swarmed with fish and was a busy waterway. On 
its banks were miles of palaces and fashionable res- 
idences ; wealthy cities whose streets were thronged 
with merchants and rabbis. Palestine nineteen hun- 
dred years ago was the most densely populated 
country on earth. The name of a Jewish merchant 
meant wealth and power in every nation of the 
world. 

Over and over again, God warned them by the 
mouth of Moses not to forget the spirit of the God 
who had led them out of Egypt, out of their house of 
bondage, and not to go after other gods, the gods of 
mammon which the heathen nations of the world 
worshiped. But they did, and when Jesus came to 
the world, He found the fiercest struggle for wealth 
moving in one grand organization all over the 
world, that never was before and has not been since 
till in this present generation. There was abun- 
dance in Palestine for all its thronging masses, and 
every man, with reasonable diligence, could have 
owned his own home and commanded the forces 
which provided him his livelihood. But the world 
was caught in shameful disgrace, when Jesus, com- 
plaining against it, said: "The foxes have holes, 
and the birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of 
man hath not where to lay his head." * A more 
faithful workman never pushed a plane nor drove an 
axe into wood, than Jesus. Yet, in His ten years of 

* Math, viii., 20. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 69 

work as a carpenter, He was not able to get enough 
ahead to buy Himself a home ; but all that He could 
do was to support His mother, who was probably a 
widow, and His younger brothers and sisters. The 
productive powers of nature were tied up by the 
monopoly of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and in 
this they were given the support and color of reli- 
gion by the scribes, and so enabled to hold their 
grip on the masses. If wealth could blush for its 
sins, it would blush when caught so sinning against 
the Son of God. But, to-day, in this land of ours, 
called by Christ's name, ten thousand times ten 
thousand of Jesus' brethren are so suffering from 
the monopoly of the wealthy, and the charge still 
stands : " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." * 

The divine rule is, " If any man provide not for 
his own, and especially for those of his own house, 
he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infi- 
del." f But how, then, shall we measure that man's 
sins who, from his superior strength, greedily 
grasps and ties up nature's productive powers so 
that thousands, from his over-reachings, cannot 
obey the divine command, and their families must go 
homeless and without the comforts of this life ? 

The Jewish people came from the loins of Abra- 
ham, the father of the faithful. Their peculiar 
monotheistic religion separated them from the na- 
tions of the earth, who were all polytheistic. God 
gave them Palestine, which lay largely between the 

* Math, xxv., 45. f 1 Tim. v., 8. 



70 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

sea and the River Jordan, the mountains on the 
north and the desert on the south. He made them 
the depository of divine truth, gave them a goodly- 
land, fought their battles for them and hedged them 
about on every side. So David said: "He hath 
not dealt so with any nation."* 

In like manner, we can trace the designs of the 
same kind Providence in our land and nation . 
We are a nation* fortified on either side by two 
great oceans, the gulf on the south, and peaceful, 
kind neighbors on the north. The expanse of an 
independent people, the diversity of climate and 
the variety of a world is under the stars and stripes. 

As a people, we were conceived in the prayers, 
poverty and sterling integrity of the Pilgrim 
fathers, who landed from the Mayflower on Plym- 
outh Rock. We were born into the world as a na- 
tion in the blood and struggles of the Revolutionary 
War. Our nation was baptized with the awaken- 
ing principle : " We hold these truths to be self- 
evident, that all men are created equal ; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien- 
able rights ; that among these are life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness." f 

The thirteen colonies were poor, but they had 
the approval of God, the divine favor rested upon 
them, and they grew as no nation had ever done be- 
fore. The eyes of the people began to be opened 
to the fact that it was a disgrace, a crime and a 
curse for a people who called themselves free to 

* Ps. cxlvii.. 20. f Declaration of Indei endence. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. *]1 

have the system of slavery among them. Early in 
the sixties the nation was precipitated into civil 
war, and before the war was ended, God led the 
armies in such a way that the slaves went free. 
Although this was only a little over a quarter of 
a century ago, there have been more discoveries of 
the storehouses of earth and a wakening of the 
sleeping powers of nature, than was ever done 
in one thousand years previous. 

When the Saviour was upon the earth, He spoke 
of Himself as the Good Shepherd, and the sheep- 
fold He is setting up on earth. He confined Him- 
self to no nation, tongue or kindred. The Jews had 
misconstrued their commanded seclusiveness from 
other nations into a haughty vanity over them. 
Jesus told the Jews : " And other sheep I have, 
which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, 
and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be 
one fold and one shepherd." * 

His sheep were those who needed His help and 
whose natures were capable of feeling the sweet in- 
fluence of brotherly love, had it not been hard- 
ened in the sin of selfishness and hypocrisy. Some 
of His sheep had wandered far away, driven from 
virtue by the poisonous winds and storms ; never- 
theless, they were His sheep, and His pity seemed 
to go out most tenderly to those who were out on 
the barren and naked rocks of poverty, suffering 
from the wrongs of strong and selfish men. I do 
not wish to make more out of the parable of. the 

* John x., 16. 



72 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Good Shepherd and the Sheepfold than there is in 
it, and I am sure I do not in making it apply to the 
kingdom of heaven that Jesus Christ is setting up 
on earth, for the temporal good and comfort of His 
brethren, as well as to the heaven above. The 
merits of Jesus Christ's sufferings and death, His 
life and teachings, apply to the wants, necessities 
and comforts of the body, as well as to the inner life 
and spiritual growth in grace ; to the making of 
our homes on earth happy, pleasant and well sup- 
plied with food and raiment, as well as the mansions 
He has prepared above for all those who love and 
follow Him on earth. Jesus Christ brought life 
and immortality to light through His gospel. We 
have emphasized His teachings on immortality and 
the glory of the mansions which are beyond, none 
too much, but we have not emphasized as we should, 
His teachings where He taught us how to make the 
kingdom of heaven He is setting up on earth apply 
to our everyday needs and wants of this present life. 
While He taught us to pray, " Give us this day our 
daily bread," * we should never forget that He has 
pointed out the way by which the daily needs of His 
children should be provided for and distributed among 
them. Jesus says : " I am the door : by me if any 
man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and 
out, and find pasture." \ The pasture He gives His 
sheep is not only that sweet love in believing on 
His name, and that abiding trust which makes 
them contented with their lot, whatever it may be, 

* Math, vi., 11. fjohnx., 9. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 73 

and throws such a halo of peace and joy around 
them that even cabins and prisons seem like 
palaces to them who believe ; but He actually turns 
and will turn the homes of His children from cab- 
ins, prisons and slums, into fine, comfortable resi- 
dences, with all that nature can give to make them 
enjoy life, in the use of God's temporal and phys- 
ical blessings, and His peace which passeth all un- 
derstanding, to purify their hearts and teach them 
how to use the things of this world as not abusing 
them. There is every evidence, both in the Scrip- 
tures and in the world, that God intends His chil- 
dren should live comfortably and happy in this 
present life. " The Lord is my shepherd; I shall 
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pas- 
tures : he leadeth me beside the still waters."* 
The opening storehouses of nature's resources to 
supply the wants of men show that God has made 
His world with abundance for His children. While 
amidst all this plenty, if the poor are reduced to the 
mere necessities of life, the kind Heavenly Father's 
intentions are frustrated by the intervention and 
interposition of strong and selfish men, who seize 
more than their share, merely to gratify their greed, 
and so make the poor to suffer. They are the 
wolves which have entered into the sheepfold and 
are devouring Jesus' sheep. 

Jesus says : " The thief cometh not, but for to 
steal, and to kill, and to destroy : I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might have it 
*Ps. xxiii., 1, 2. 



74 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

more abundantly."* Or, as the marginal reading has 
it, " that they may have abundance." The world 
should have no hesitation in receiving the truth 
and recognizing the fact that the teachings of 
Jesus Christ are the only sure way to the true 
happiness and prosperity of any people. There is 
no question that any man who attempts to lead us 
in the ways of prosperity or brotherly love in any 
other name than Jesus', will be found a thief and 
robber. Pure love from God and Jesus Christ, 
making us love our fellow-men, is the only solution 
for the ills of the world. You will notice that we 
do not say Church membership, nor science ; no, 
nothing but the love of Jesus. 

This age of great fortune-building has fired men 
with a wild mania for wealth and money-getting, of 
which it is hardly too much to say, we are cutting 
one another's throats in business, like the wild 
savages who formerly inhabited this country. Busi- 
ness is almost a system of the strong taking advan- 
tage of the weak. Everything is money. Not 
only has honesty given way before this great influx 
of the dominion of selfishness, but even affection 
has abdicated the throne of the hearts of the people. 
The brother who is successful in business moves to 
an aristocratic avenue of the city, cuts the acquaint- 
ance and familiar association of his poorer brother 
and his family, who stay on some back street, 
because the true spirit of the incarnate God of 
heaven dwells in the poorer brother, and will not 

* John x., 10. 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 75 

let him rob and plunder from the weak and needy. 
The mother and sisters and all the relations speak 
in the highest praises of the rich brother, and even 
the poor man's wife wishes in her heart that it had 
been her good fortune when she married to have 
struck the brother who got rich. 

Women unblushingly say that they will not 
marry where there is no money to sweeten 
the marriage. And we must not blame them 
too much. This awful reign of selfishness, fired 
on one side by the few in large accumulations 
of wealth, and fanned on the other by the severe 
Struggle of the many to get a respectable living, 
and all the time is growing worse, cannot help 
polluting even the love of women. We can hardly 
expect a girl to give up a $60 salary to marry, and 
divide a $40 salary with a husband, and even that 
uncertain. There are few girls and men, if any, 
who would not rather marry than remain single, 
and would, were it not for the fear of poverty. The 
curse of the large increasing number of bachelors 
and old maids, is fairly to be charged up against this 
inordinate thirst for money. At God's great bar, 
the homes which are never formed, but should have 
been, and the joys that these people have lost that 
they should have had, will be applied to the account 
of the greedy, wealthy man, who in hell will lift up 
his eyes being in torment, because he held powers 
of the productiveness of the world that these peo- 
ple should have had. 

Our Continental European friends say, "In 



j6 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

America the flowers have no odor, the fruit no taste 
and the women no hearts." All is business. It is 
business at the tea table. It is business at the party. 
It is business by the way of travel. It is business 
in the house of God, and the voice of the money- 
changer is heard, so that it is out of the question for 
the poor man in many cases to attend church and 
have the gospel preached to him. " From the least 
of them even unto the greatest of them everyone is 
given to covetousness : and from the prophet even 
unto the priest every one dealeth falsely."* There 
are $800 ministers, and $1,000 ministers, and $1,200 
ministers, and $2,000 ministers, and $4,000 minis- 
ters, and $5,000 ministers, and so on. "They that 
preach the gospel should live of the gospel," \ is 
right and just ; but with some, the clerical profes- 
sion has become a cold matter of business, and with 
many it is entirely too much so. Against such 
Ezekiel complains bitterly, saying, " Woe be to the 
shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves ! Ye 
eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill 
them that are fed : but ye feed not the flock. "J 

"Some clergy there are of the hypocrite stock, 
Who care more for the fleece than they do for the flock ; 
And these you will know before you install, 
For the larger the salary, the louder they'll call." 

From these men we need expect no help in the 
great struggle to turn back the tide of selfishness 
which is covering the land and threatens to engulf 
us all. "But he that is a hireling, and not the 

*Jer. vi., 13. fl Cor. ix., 14. JEzek. xxxiv., 2-3, 



PALESTINE AND THE UNITED STATES. 77 

shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the 
wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth ; and 
the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. 
The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and 
careth not for the sheep. The good shepherd lay- 
eth down his life for the sheep." * There are many 
obedient ministers to the will of the Great Shep- 
herd, who will do as He did and preach His gospel, 
no matter at what cost, danger or sacrifice. As 
God has, in all great struggles for liberty and free- 
dom, raised up men for the emergency, so He will 
raise up men to fight this great battle when He 
shall gather His hosts at Armageddon, the moun- 
tain of the gospel, or of fruits and apples. 

It was two thousand years from the loss of Eden, 
until Abraham, the father of the Hebrew race. 
From Abraham to Jesus Christ was two thousand 
years more, and it is now approaching two thou- 
sand years since Jesus was born into the world in 
human flesh. At the time Jesus came to the world, 
commerce was free all over the earth, ready for a 
world's movement ; and had men accepted Him, a 
mighty reformation could have been brought about 
in one generation. The same condition exists to- 
day, with speed of travel greatly quickened. As 
Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives, just after He had 
closed His last public address in the temple, and His 
crucifixion was evident from the rage of the people, 
He said to His disciples: "This gospel of the 
kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a 

* John x., 12-15. 



78 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

witness unto all nations : and then shall the end 
come."* As if He had said, When brotherly love 
fills the hearts of the people who know My gospel, 
so that they will send it to all the other nations of 
the world, then wi-11 the end come. " The grain of 
mustard seed will then be sown in the field." j- 
"The leaven will then be hid in the meal which 
will leaven the whole lump." t 

The angel is flying in the midst of heaven, 
" having the everlasting gospel to preach to them 
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and 
kindred, and tongue, and people." § To-day, there 
is not a nation under heaven which does not have 
the gospel preached in it as a witness. And this 
fact is being emphasized more and more every year, 
by foreign missions. The times are auspicious and 
augur that some great world's movement is close at 
hand. The stately steppings of the power of the 
gospel may be very near, and doubtless are, if men 
will arise in the armor of brotherly love in Christ 
and do their duty. The weal or the woe of com- 
ing generations may hang as much on our deter- 
mination as it did on the choice of our first parents, 
or the men in the time when Jesus Christ was on 
earth. 

The prophecies and warnings of the Scriptures, 
the teachings and life of Jesus, have special appli- 
cation to this generation. 

* Math, xxiv., 14. f Math, xiii., 31. t Math, xiii., 33- § Rev, 
xiv., 6. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 




pT*HE unwonted kindness with which Jesus 
Christ treated the poor, and even the err- A 
ing ones among them, lifting them up and pointing 
them to purer lives on earth, as forerunners of lives 
in the pure heaven at God's right hand forever- 
more, together with the blessings which He pro- 
nounced upon them as a class, is a marked feature 
of His life and teachings. His life came in sharp 
contrast with the teachings of Plato, who taught 
the doctrine that there was a heaven for the rich, 
the refined, the poets, the orators and statesmen, 
but left the masses wallowing in ignorance, de- 
bauchery and crime, without a hope of heaven to 
lift them above their temptations. In the same 
manner, the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees looked 
upon the poor as little better than dogs and hea- 
then, and called them scabs. 

There is no account of a single compliment 
that Jesus Christ ever paid to the rich, and in- 
stead of the patronizing spirit shown by peo- 
ple in general to them, both He and John, His fore- 
runner, repulsed them at the very threshold of His 

79 



80 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

kingdom of heaven, whenever they attempted to 
enter. 

His mother prophesied of Him while he was yet 
in her womb, in talking with the mother of John 
the Baptist, "He hath put down the mighty from 
their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He 
hath filled the hungry with good things ; and the 
rich he hath sent empty away."* The mother of 
Jesus was only echoing and quoting what Isaiah 
had prophesied of Him seven hundred years before. 

All through His ministry, from His opening ser- 
mon up in Nazareth, till He closed His earthly 
career, was an unbroken defence of the poor, or 
common people, against their oppressors, and an 
attempt to lift them up and better their condition. 
He took for His first text : 

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

" Because he anointed me to preach good tidings 
to the poor ; 

" He hath sent me to proclaim release to the cap- 
tives, 

" And recovering of sight to the blind ; 

" To set at liberty them that are bruised, 

" To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 

" And he closed the book and gave it back to the 
minister, and sat down : and the eyes of all in the 
synagogue were fastened upon him. And he began 
to say unto them, To-day hath this Scripture been 
fulfilled in your ears." f 

Here is the text without the sermon, except the 

* Luke i., 52, 53. f Luke iv., 18-21. (R. V.) 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 8 1 

first sentence. From the text we can judge the na- 
ture of the sermon, and the text says that the spirit 
of the Lord was upon Jesus Christ, because it had 
anointed Him to preach the good tidings to the 
poor. There was no need to record the formal ser- 
mon. His life and the New Testament were the 
great sermon from this text. The preaching of the 
gospel to the poor, or the common people, or the 
masses — for this is the sense in which Jesus seemed 
to use the word poor — was the announced and 
distinct character of Jesus Christ's teachings and 
mission to the world. 

In His inaugural address on the mount, His open- 
ing sentence was the key to all which should fol- 
low, and is, as Matthew puts it, " Blessed are the 
poor in spirit ;" * or, as Luke has it, " Blessed be ye 
poor : for yours is the kingdom of God," j- as if it 
did not matter which way it was said, for the peo- 
ple spoken of were one and the same. The kingdom 
Jesus Christ was setting up on earth was for the 
common people, and was a type and forerunner of 
the heaven above, and the rich would not and 
could not enter into it, for Jesus would not permit 
it to be so. 

The freedom of the masses means the elevation 
of the social standard. It was to the common 
people, whom Jesus said: "Ye are the light of 
the world ; " " Ye are the salt of the earth. "J But, 
if the common people be degraded and sunken in 
vice, the light is under a bushel, and the salt has 

*Math. v., 3. fLukevi., 20. J Math, v., 13, 14. 



82 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

lost its savor and is good for nothing. The com- 
mon people are the bulwark, the ballast and the 
brains of any free and prosperous nation. Where 
these are free and enlightened, the nation is pros- 
perous ; but where the power goes into the hands 
of the few, the common people sink out of influence 
into vice, and the nation is dead and her glory de- 
parted. 

James cautioned the people of his time, saying : 
" Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God 
chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and 
heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to 
them that love him?"* We have not said all 
that is in this verse when we say that the poor in 
our churches have a richer faith than the wealthy 
have, although this is a fact. James does not make 
any distinction, or divide the poor into two classes, 
but it is the poor of whom he speaks. He says 
they are rich in faith and that they are heirs of the 
kingdom which God has promised to them that 
love Him. There are no exceptions filed, nor an 
intimation that any are left out. 

It is a fact that the poor are governed more by 
the laws of brotherly love than the rich. The rich 
choose their friends and associates, rating them 
largely by the amount of money they have ; while 
the poor choose their friends by affinities and per- 
sonal attractions, which is the law of the angels and 
spirits of just men made perfect. The poor are 
governed more by affection and sympathy in their 

* James ii., 5. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 83 

associations and dealings with their fellow-men. 
They have more respect for the good opinion of 
their fellow-men. The vox ftoftuli, the voice of God 
speaking through men, has its existence from the 
decisions of the common people. The common 
people, as a rule, are more conscientious and high- 
minded, from their condition, their minglings and 
dealings with men, than the rich. 

The rich are not only governed socially by money 
and selfishness, but their sins are dictated by selfish- 
ness. They sin in cold blood. They plan their 
own path in life and bend every energy of their 
nature towards its accomplishment. The larger the 
field opens before them to commit their sins against 
God and men, in grasping the opportunities of the 
world and the productive powers of nature, the 
more they are delighted, the stronger their selfish- 
ness grows, the more their vanity and their pride is 
enlarged and the farther they drift away from sym- 
pathy for their fellow-men and from brotherly love. 
" Therefore pride compasseth them about as a 
chain ; violence covereth them as a garment. Their 
eyes stand out with fatness : they have more than 
heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak 
wickedly concerning oppression : they speak loft- 
ily. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in 
the world ; they increase in riches." * 

Prudence and economy, in the man providing for 
his own, and, especially, his own household, be- 
comes in them selfishness, stinginess, or, probably 

* Ps. Ixxiii., 6-8, 12. 



84 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

more appropriately, hoggishness ; but they call it 
good business management, and the crown with 
which the Lord awards superior ability, faithfulness 
and tact in their callings. 

The sins of the poor are, for the most part, sins 
from weakness, and often caused by the unjust con- 
dition of society, made largely by the rich, assisted 
by their dupes. They are sins of which Paul wrote : 
''Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye 
which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit 
of meekness ; considering thyself, lest thou also be 
tempted." * They are overtaken in sin, and do not 
designedly and determinedly go into it. Tempta- 
tions have been strong and, at an unguarded mo- 
ment, they have taken a step which makes it hard to 
recover the hold on virtue that was lost. Their 
sins are more against themselves than anyone else, 
and circumstances over which they had no control 
often largely determine the course of their down- 
fall and ruin. They call more for our pity than for 
our condemnation. 

Jesus preached the gospel of love to the poor, and 
in a loving and tender manner ; but He unsheathed 
the sword of divine justice when He met the rich. 
It was to the rich that He came not to send peace, 
but a sword. The poor have a hard enough time 
in the world from the oppression of the wrongs of 
the rich. They need sympathy, and are tractable 
and teachable , therefore, mild and loving measures 
will win, lead and control them from error and sin 
* Gal. vi., 1. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 85 

to better ways. But the rich are self-conceited, 
self-willed, accustomed to control, and will not fol- 
low where there is no money in it. They under- 
stand profit and loss. No class of men can be so 
certainly depended upon to move as they, where 
gain or loss of money is the motive power. This is 
business. But the cords of sympathy in them are 
weak and often broken. They were selfish by na- 
ture, which led them to make money, and every 
dollar they made strengthened this evil nature in 
them. The poor, as a class, were not by nature so 
selfish, and whatever they had was not developed 
by their habits of life ; so they are more consider- 
ate of the wishes and welfare of others. Their 
position in life makes them mutually dependent, 
consequently, accommodating and helpful to those 
with whom they have to do. It was from the 
poor Samaritan's character that our Lord found His 
example of a good neighbor, over the well-fed priest 
and wealthy Levite. The Samaritan, from his pen- 
ury, relieved the hunger and distress of the man on 
his way to Jericho who had fallen among thieves, 
while the wealthy passed by on the other side. It 
is worthy of note that this was in a lonely road, 
where few went, and had the priest or the Levite 
relieved this man's sufferings, probably no one 
would have seen it, nor would it have been told in 
Jerusalem, so the Levite and the priest passed by on 
the other side. 

We may scoffingly say there are lazy fellows who 
want to tramp and will not work. And so some 



86 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

of them are, and we can abuse them all we want 
to, and with freedom, for they have no chance to 
make answer or reply. But the truth is, only a few 
of these men are naturally so. They are largely the 
product and condition of the state of society. If 
they had, by nature, an inclination in this direction, 
correct and equitable business associations and rela- 
tions would have developed the most of them into 
good and industrious men. But they were disap- 
pointed ; hunting for work and finding none, they 
became discouraged, their hearts failed them, they 
lay down on the race-course of life, and gave up 
ever touching the goal of being anybody in the 
world, and so became outcasts from society, and 
eke out a miserable existence. Of course, they 
should have had more nerve and not given up so 
easily, but theirs was a sin of weakness, and not of 
intention ; neither did they invite it, nor desire to 
indulge it. The lines of life have fallen to them in 
hard places, and the rich man has made it so. If 
the rich look down on these men and despise them, 
they despise their own work. And if they despise 
that which they have caused, what must God think 
of them and their conduct in making conditions so 
that this large class of unhappy men must be the 
result? Is it any wonder that Jesus condemned the 
conduct of the lives of the wealthy, and that His 
forgiving sympathy was so great to the poor, that 
He dealt so tenderly with them and so gently re- 
proved their sins, for they were being wronged out 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 8>7 

of the enjoyment of this life which God intended 
they should have. 

When the multitude followed Jesus, not because 
they saw His miracles, but because they did eat of 
the loaves and were filled, He, tenderly as a parent, 
chided them, calling their attention to this selfish 
trait in their character and conduct, saying to them, 
" Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for 
that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, 
which the Son of man shall give unto you : for him 
hath God the Father sealed." * 

In His reproof, He was met with no self-con- 
ceited contention, nor His person subjected to un- 
kind criticisms in return, as was always the case with 
the scribes and wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees, 
when warned of their danger or reproved for their 
sins. But, with the tractable demeanor of children, 
they answered and said unto Him, " What shall we 
do, that we might work the works of God? " f 

The poor drunkard often drinks because he is too 
weak to resist the appetite for strong drink. He 
wishes he were free from the appetite, and is 
ashamed of himself for his weakness. The poor 
street-walker made her first wrong step in obedi- 
ence to the highest passion of her nature, only ille- 
gally. For her mistake, she was ostracized from so- 
ciety, and now she walks the streets, not because 
she loves her avocation, but to supply the honest 
demands of her nature — food and clothing. Not 
many are there because it is their choice, but 

*John vi., 27. t John vi., 28. 



88 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

misery put them there, and necessity holds them 
there. Did we know the story of their lives, we 
would probably pity them, from the fact that they 
have been more sinned against than they have 
sinned. Did we know the longings of their hearts 
when out on the sea of sin, how they look back to 
the shores of honor and purity, and long for them 
more than ever ship- wrecked sailor wished for land, 
we would not be surprised when novel writers, 
to be true to nature, represent that when many 
of them come to die, they turn to Jesus, and 
wish they had not lived a life of sin, asking 
Him to have mercy on their souls. But let us hear 
the words of one when dying in the gutters of the 
streets of Cincinnati, in mid-winter, and while 
there, penning "The Beautiful Snow," which the 
London Spectator says is the finest poem ever writ- 
ten by an American. I will quote a few of her 
verses : 

" Once I was pure as the beautiful snow — but I fell, 
Fell like the snow-flakes, from heaven to hell. 
Fell to be trampled as filth in the street, 
P*ell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat ;• 

Pleading, cursing, dreading to die, 

Selling my soul to whoever would buy, 

Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, 

Hating the living and fearing the dead. 

Merciful God ! have I fallen so low ? 

Yet I was once like the beautiful snow. 

How strange it should be that the beautiful snow 

Should fall on a sinner with no where to go ; 

How strange it would be when the. night comes again, 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 89 

If the snow and the ice strike my desperate brain. 

Fainting, freezing, dying alone, 

Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan 

To be heard in the streets of a crazy town, 

Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down ; 

To be and to die in my terrible woe, 

With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow." 

I give this as a sample of what are doubtless the 
death-bed longings and heartaches of many of those 
poor, unfortunate girls. And can we doubt for one 
moment that the Saviour's pitying eye does not 
take notice of and claim many of them for His pure 
home on high? There is something in long and 
large indulgence in immorality and intemperance 
which tends to disgust, satiate, and the sinner often 
turns to his Saviour for relief. But in wealth-get- 
ting, the more a man gets, the more he wants ; it 
develops vanity, pride, selfishness, self-will, and 
binds a man as with a cart rope. 

It was of one who had men under his charge, 
that the Lord said, "But, and if that evil servant 
shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming ; 
and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to 
eat and drink with the drunken ; the lord of that 
servant shall come in a day when he looketh not 
for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, 
and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his 
portion with the hypocrites : there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth."* This awful doom 
and suffering are spoken of as being the portion of 

*Math. xxiv., 48-51. 



90 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

a man who is able to have others in his employ, and 
at least was not a poor man. The first sin men- 
tioned is the beating of the servants, and this 
is evidently the sin upon which the condemnation 
rested most heavily, and the drinking and drunk- 
enness was rather an attendant, than primary. 

When the centurion, a heathen man, came to the 
Saviour at Capernaum, pleading for the life and 
recovery of his servant, the large-hearted man and 
his generosity brought to Jesus' mind, by contrast, 
the scribes and wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees, 
holding the productive powers of the land of Pal- 
estine in their hands, while they were indifferent to 
the suffering they were causing among the masses. 
So He said to those standing by, " Verily I say 
unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not 
in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall 
come from the east and west, and shall sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the king- 
dom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom 
shall be cast out into outer darkness : there shall be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth."* 

While the Saviour pointed out sins both of omis- 
sion and commission, which the poor as well as the 
rich might commit, that would render them unfit 
for the kingdom of God and heaven, yet He never 
singled out a poor man as being in hell, like He did 
the rich man ; nor the poor man dying in the im- 
mediate disgrace of his sins, as in His parable 
of the rich fool, when his ground had brought 

*Math. viii., 10-12. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 91 

forth plentifully. It is said : " And he thought 
within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I 
have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he 
said. This will I do : I will pull down my barns and 
build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruit 
and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take 
thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said 
unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be 
required of thee : then whose shall those things be, 
which thou hast provided?"* 

Rich men live in their selfishness and greed, and 
all the powers of their being are given to gratify 
their greediness, little above and alike in principle 
with the swine ; for them there is no hope of refor- 
mation, nor reason for call for sympathy from God ; 
like brutes they live and like brutes they die, and 
death calls them often in the height of their in- 
iquity. 

Whoever heard of the plutocrat in his death 
bemoaning the life he had lived in absorbing the 
opportunities of his fellow-men, and regretting his 
so-called successful business career of raking in 
millions, of which before God he had robbed his fel- 
low-man? David, the Psalmist, says of the wealthy, 
"There are no bands in their death, but their 
strength is firm."f 

But no faithful minister has preached long whose 
diary does not contain accounts of drunkards and 
dissolute men reformed and saved to lives of purity 

*Ltlke xii., 17-20. f Ps. lxxiii., 4. 



92 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and honor, and also of death-bed repentances of the 
same. The poor thief on the cross was converted 
and is in heaven to-day. Also, Lazarus, the beg- 
gar, is there. 

We do not say that none but the rich go to hell, 
for there are sins which the poor do and may 
commit, that will render them unfit for the pure, 
sweet society of brotherly love of the kingdom of 
God on earth, and will necessarily unfit them for 
the purity of that perfect society of heaven. But 
we do find that the sin of selfishness is the most 
blighting, damning sin that ever inhabits the 
human heart. We find also that there is nothing 
which so feeds and fattens selfishness as rapid 
money-getting and large money-holding. It is the 
fountain-head of sin, from whence flow poverty, 
suffering and crime. We can therefore see why 
Jesus pointed hell and damnation in the path 
before the wealthy and rich men. Selfishness is 
the characteristic sin of the rich, and selfishness is 
the sin of the devil ; so it also seems highly fitting 
that these rich men should go to the everlasting 
punishment, or hell, " prepared for the devil and his 
angels." In the case of the rich man in hell, he 
was told by Abraham that his position was fixed 
beyond hope of change or pardon. 

On the other hand, might it not be in keeping 
with the kind economy of Jesus, and His gentle, 
forgiving manner of dealing with the weak and 
those defrauded out of this life's privileges, if they 
pollute themselves, by reason of their environments, 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



93 



with sin which unfits them for heaven, that they 
should not be sent where those selfish plutocrats 
could impose upon them throughout all eternity? 
But might it not be that they go to Hades, and not 
Gehenna — to the place of the lost, but not to the 
lake of fire? 

The poor drunkard, who unwittingly may have 
gained an appetite for strong drink, which became 
his master before he was aware of it, and led him 
bound hand and foot, or the poor fellow whose ap- 
petite was inherited from his father, or the woman 
who is a sinner, may all be where they are from no 
choice of their own. Since many of them are the 
product of a wrongly constituted state of society, 
need we be astonished that Jesus has not left one 
personal condemning sentence on record against the 
drunkard, or that He so freely offered pardon and 
purity to her who was a sinner, because they had 
been sinned against a great deal more than they had 
sinned. 

When the drunkard dies, he will leave his stom- 
ach in the grave, and go free, unshackled, into the 
world beyond. The woman who is a sinner will 
leave her environments, above which she could not 
rise while in the world, on earth behind her. But 
the selfish man's sin is on his soul, and it will go to 
the bar of God and into eternity with him. The 
sin of selfishness is a sin of self-determination ; it is 
deliberate, it acts in cool blood,- it does not act com- 
pelled by the pressure of circumstances, it is not the 
result of weakness ; but, in the rich, it has its de- 



94 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

velopment from superior strength, and gathers as 
years go by and wealth increases. They are more and 
more confirmed while they live, and this being not 
due to any surroundings, it is logical that they will 
grow more and more fixed in their sin, and so it 
was of them that the Saviour said, The judge at the 
great assize will say, Depart, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, for in my distress and sufferings (or, 
which is the same, the poor, my brethren), ye did 
not minister, feed or clothe me. 

We are instructed by the apostle: "Brethren, 
if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are 
spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meek- 
ness ; and so fulfil the law of Christ." * If this is 
our duty, to fulfil the law of Christ, is it too much 
to suppose that Jesus may exercise the same mag- 
nanimity, even beyond the probation of this life? 
The Scriptures tell us that when Jesus died, He im- 
mediately departed to hellf "and went and preached 
unto the spirits in prison. For this cause was the 
gospel preached also to them that are dead, that 
they might be judged according to men in the flesh, 
but live according to God in the spirit."' J They were 
oppressed, and had no chance to be the architects 
of their fortunes or character on earth while 
in the flesh, so may not Jesus give them an oppor- 
tunity, freed from these men and circumstances, 
and let them be tested as free men, whether they 
will choose God, brotherly love, purity and kind- 
ness, or the devil and selfishness. 

* Gal. vi., 1, 2. fActsii., 27. J 1 Peter iii., 19, and iv., 6. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 95 

When on the very border-land of the world be- 
yond, Jesus forgave the thief on the cross beside 
Him, saying to him, " To-day shalt thou be with 
me in paradise."* May not the thief have gone 
with the Saviour to Hades, preparatory to his going 
to the highest heaven, where God resides ; and 
was there with Jesus to corroborate His preaching, 
the story of His life on earth, His sufferings, His 
death, and His pardoning mercy? I do not wish 
to dogmatize here. I rather wish to ask the 
question. 

Babylon was the queen of finance of the earth. 
She controlled the banking and monetary move- 
ments of the world. The name of Babylon, from 
the strength of the operations of her bulls and bears, 
was a synonym for wealth and money power. 
John, in his revelation of those things which must 
shortly come to pass, saw " Great Babylon fallen 
and become the habitation of devils, and the hold 
of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean 
and hateful bird. The merchants of the earth are 
waxed rich through the abundance of her deli- 
cacies. The merchants of these things, which were 
made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of 
her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, 
alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, 
and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and 
precious stones, and pearls ! For in one hour so 
great riches is come to nought. And they cast 
dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wail- 

*I/uke xxiii., 43. 



96 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were 
made rich all that had ships in the sea, by reason of 
her costliness ! For in one hour is she made deso- 
late."* This was not the historic Babylon which 
John saw in his vision of things which, would come 
to pass, for the city of Babylon had fallen and been 
destroyed years before. But it was a vision of the 
doom of the plutocratic power on earth, which God 
will bring when the common people shall throw off 
the dominion of selfishness and live in brotherly 
love one with another on earth. The next verse 
reads, " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye 
holy apostles and prophets ; for God hath avenged 
you on her."j- 

After this came forth the " white horse ; and 
he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, 
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 
And on his thigh a name is written, KING OF 
KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And the 
beast (Babylon) and the kings of the earth and 
their armies, gathered together to make war against 
him that sat upon the horse, and against his army. 
And the beast was taken, and with him the false 
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with 
which he deceived them that received the mark of 
the beast ; and them that worshiped his image. 
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire 
burning with brimstone." J 

Immediately after this, John saw the " angel 

*Rev. xviii., 2, 3, 15, 16, 19. f Rev. xviii., 20. $ Rev. xix., 11, 
16, 19, 20. 



THE COMMON PEOPLE. 97 

come down from heaven, having the key of the 
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And 
he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which 
is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and 
shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he 
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand 
years should be fulfilled."* 

When the people rise to the high, pure atmos- 
phere of brotherly love, God will not only over- 
throw plutocracy, but He will bind the devil and 
shut him also up in hell, that bottomless pit burning 
with fire and brimstone. 

*Rev. xx., 1. 2, 3. 



CHAPTER VII, 




THE LORDS PRAYER. 

UR Father which art in heaven." On the 
fatherhood of God rests the brotherhood 
of man. The relationship existing between chil- 
dren is not direct, one with another, but it runs up 
through the parents, uniting the children in one 
common brotherhood. Men are all brethren, one 
with another, because God is our common Father. 
God's universal fatherhood of all men makes every 
man and woman as much the son and daughter of 
God as we, or anyone else ; and so all have equal 
rights, before God, to the good things of this 
world. 

The love among children to each other springs 
from the love they have for their parents, and is 
commensurate with it. The strength of a man's 
love to God is the measure and source of his true 
and abiding love for his fellow-men. Here we find 
the reason why God or Jesus made love to God the 
first commandment, and the second like unto it, 
the love of man for his neighbor. 

As Jesus said : ''Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 

98 



THE LORDS PRAYER. 99 

with all thy mind. This is the first and great com- 
mandment. The second is like unto it, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets."* 

True love of our fellow-men finds its reason and 
derives its power from God. One family, we dwell 
in Him. The world is God's house and we are 
God's children in it. 

There is one province in human emotions which 
critics dare not invade, and only one — that is a 
mother's love. In the fall, this affection seemed to 
have almost escaped the effects of its blighting 
curse. Inspiration offers no corrections, or even a 
rule to direct it ; but uses it as an illustration to 
teach men the character of God's love, and only 
adds that God's love is certainly constant, while 
there is a possibility of a mother's intermitting. If 
the child is sick, the mother's love is more excited. 
If the son is wayward and hated of men, her love 
grows more firm and visible. If he is unfortunate 
and the world goes hard with him, her love seems to 
grow more intense and to be rekindled. Her love 
is not logic ; neither does it obey the dictates of 
society. It acts under the inclinations of a mother's 
heart, and only this. It sits as a queen in the 
world. It is dictated to by none. It is the same 
in all. There is nothing in humanity which all 
men so admire, honor and adore. 

The parental government is the highest form of 

♦Math, xxii., 37-40. 



IOO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

government among men. It is the most equitable. 
It has the most love in it. It is more like God's 
government than any other. In it there are no 
favors given to greater age or larger strength. 
All are alike, male and female, strong and weak; 
"there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ; for 
ye are all one in Christ Jesus."* Such is family 
government and such is the kingdom of Jesus 
Christ. The family is an oasis of brotherly love in 
the wide desert of selfishness in the business world. 
The children too young, sick or lame and unable to 
work, pay no board, neither are they paupers in 
their father's house. What belongs to the parents 
is the children's ; and this children know by an in- 
stinct, which no child coming into the world has 
ever failed to recognize. The parents have their 
children, not to see how much they can make out 
of them ; but they are theirs to minister unto and 
to provide for. Even the brutes know this and 
obey the law during the helpless time of their 
young. 

Parents do not command their children to obey 
and respect them from a sense of the love of rever- 
ence and honor, as ambitious potentates do their 
subjects ; but it is solely for the children's good 
and their honor. A proper respect, love and honor 
from the child to the parents, as its superiors, are the 
grounds of a good citizen and a Christian life in 
mature years. Here is the reason, evidently, why 

*Gal. iii., 28. 



THE LORDS PRAYER. IOI 

Jehovah made the first half of the Decalogue, love 
to God. The transition from the first half — love 
to God — to the second half, love to men, logic- 
ally and beautifully is made in the love and obedi- 
ence of the child to the parent, giving as a reason 
for the command of obedience, "that thy days may 
be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in 
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."* 
When Moses had delivered these commandments to 
the children of Israel, he told them : " The Lord 
commandeth us to do these statutes, to fear the 
Lord our God, for our good always. "j* 

So, while it is man's duty to render praise, honor, 
love, adoration, and be in submission to God and 
Jesus Christ for His wonderful exaltation, the per- 
fection of His attributes, the supreme loveliness of 
His character, and His matchless works of love to 
the sons of men ; yet He never demands this from 
us unless there is coupled with it and from it flows 
the direct results of our good and highest honor. 
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear Him." J 

Never was there a man on earth so sweetly mod- 
est as Jesus. His modesty, if nothing else, would 
have forbidden Him asking anything merely for His 
own glory. His modesty often impelled Him, when 
He had performed some great miracle, to forbid 
His disciples and those around Him from publish- 
ing it ; " And He charged them that they should 
not make Him known. "§ His life was a ministry 

*Deut. v.. 6. f Dettt. vi., 24. J Ps. ciii., 13. § Math, xii., 16. 



102 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

of service to and for others, and He was the servant 
of the poorest of men. 

To the scribes and Pharisees He said : "I receive 
not honor from men."* "I seek not mine own 
glory; if I honor myself , my honor is nothing."! 
That theology is exactly incorrect which teaches 
that Jesus Christ demands worship and honor from 
men which is in any way akin to the pomp and 
power of earthly princes and potentates. 

The older children act as quasi -parents to their 
younger brothers and sisters. The strong brother 
protects and cares for his weaker and more de- 
fenceless sister. The sick child is the center of 
affection and the object of care and solicitude of the 
entire family. 

Jesus Christ came to the world in the character 
of an older brother, and exhibited this relation in 
its highest and perfect form, showing us how to be- 
have ourselves with our fellow-men. It was He 
"who went about doing good and healing all that 
were oppressed of the devil. "J He taught men how 
to live so that they might attain to the highest happi- 
ness socially, and fit themselves for the pure world of 
light and love beyond the shores of time. He also 
taught men how to live so that the earth would 
yield up her stores, and all might have and enjoy 
the good things of the productive powers of nature, 
and His strongest condemnations were aimed against 
men who were frustrating this design of our kind 
Creator. " Jesus called them unto him, and said, 

•John v., 41. f John viii., 50, 54. % Acts x., 38. 



THE LORDS PRAYER. IO3 

Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise 
dominion over them, and they that are great exer- 
cise authority upon them. But it shall not be so 
among you ; but whosoever will be great among 
you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever will 
be chief among you, let him be your servant ; even 
as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many."* "This is my commandment, That ye love 
one another, as I have loved you. Greater love 
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
life for his friends. "f "But God commendeth his 
love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us." J 

The manner of Christ's love must be and is the 
character of the love of all His true followers ; and 
this is something for which no amount of experi- 
ence or profession and obedience to the command- 
ments of men can be made a substitute. The 
conduct of Jesus Christ will be reflected from the 
life of every man who has the spirit of Christ 
abiding in his heart. " Now if any man have not 
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."§ With His 
spirit in our hearts, we must work the works of 
righteousness and exercise love toward all men as 
He did, is a law as inflexible as that the warm sun- 
shine and rains of spring will make nature put on 
her new dress of living green. 

The tree which puts not forth her buds and 

* Matt, xx., 25-28. f John xv., 12, 13. $ Rom. v., 8. § Rom. 
viii., 9. 



IO4 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

leaves in the spring, is dead. John, at the ripe old 
age of eighty, wrote : " We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth 
in death."* The brethren here spoken of are, 
doubtless, those whom Jesus styled His brethren ; 
that is, the poor and needy. And further on in the 
same letter, John writes : " Hereby perceive we 
the love of God, because he laid down his life for 
us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the 
brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, 
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up 
his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth 
the love of God in him? "j- 

Our love is not only to be like Christ's love, but 
His love is the measure of our love. " This is my 
commandment, That ye love one another, as I have 
loved you. "J The wealthy monopolist who gives 
one per cent, of his income to relieve the suf- 
fering of the poor, and then goes on tying up the 
opportunities of the productive powers of nature, 
so that the poor become poorer, while he becomes 
richer, does not love the poor as Jesus Christ did, 
when He gave His life for them. As long as he 
does so, the condemnation is upon him : " Inas- 
much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
ye did it not to me."§ There is not a moment to 
the wealthy man or plutocrat that, in his mind's 
eye, he cannot see hundreds suffering and in need 

*1 John iii., 14. f 1 John iii., 16, 17. $ John 15, 12. § Math, 
xxv., 45. 



THE LORD S PRAYER. IO5 

of money which his over-supply would relieve, and 
the larger part never would have been, had not he, 
and others like him, tied up the resources of nature 
from the reach of the masses. 

We perceive the love of God by His laying down 
His life for us, and the command is that we 
ought to be willing to lay down our lives for the 
brethren, if needs be ; and so, certainly, it is not too 
great a gift to part with all the wealth we may have, 
for the good of others, to remove their honest and 
oppressive wants. "Skin for skin, yea, all that a 
man hath will he give for his life,"* said Satan, 
from his wide knowledge of men, and here he once 
spoke what is true. 

There is no form of sin that causes so much 
misery and suffering among men, as the selfish 
greed of a few, piling up fortunes, which compels 
the millions to toil, and for their labors receive only 
the plainest living, and many of them suffer hunger 
and cold and nakedness in this, our land of plenty. 

" Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be 
thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done 
in earth, as it is in heaven." j- 

For two thousand years, Jesus' followers have 
been praying these words, as He commanded. And 
in spite of the fetters of forms and doctrines of 
men which the gospel has ever struggled under, 
in the last few centuries, Christian civilization 
has brought our race from the lowest of men to a 

*Job ii., 4. f Math, vi., 9, 10. 



Io6 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

generation of people with more general intelli- 
gence than any ever before. 

But, great as the distance may be between us and 
barbarism, it is not so great as that which lies 
before us to be covered, ere we reach the fullness of 
the kingdom of heaven, or brotherly love, which 
Jesus taught us to pray for, and which He will 
surely establish on earth. 

And when He has, every man will sit under his 
own vine and fig tree, with none to molest or 
make him afraid.* Then every man can, and will, 
own his own home and house, and no mortgage 
will ever threaten or drive him hence. Then men 
will work fewer hours of the day, and spend 
more time in recreation, in social and intellectual 
development. These few hours are all any man 
will care to work, and there will be plenty of work 
for every man who wishes and is willing to work. 
Then there will be none who are wealthy, and 
absorb the productive powers of nature, but abun- 
dance will be within the easy reach of all. 

The great men of this coming age will be those 
who are the most unmindful of self, who are 
the most abundant in good works, and help others 
to enjoy the life which God has given to men. 

Mother nature will pour out her good things 
into the lap of plenty with as much greater pro- 
fusion than she is now yielding up her wealth, as 
this is above that which she gave the red man who 
preceded us. 

*Mich. iv., 4. 



THE LORDS PRAYER. 107 

Isaiah, looking out from a loftier mount than 
Pisgah's height, viewed the kingdom of broth- 
erly love on earth, towards which we are advanc- 
ing, and heard and saw "The mountains and 
the hills breaking forth into singing, and all the 
trees of the field clapping their hands. Instead of 
the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of 
the brier shall come up the myrtle tree ; and it shall 
be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign 
that shall not be cut off."* 

Then men can and will live in obedience to 
Jesus' high command: "Take no thought for 
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; 
nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is 
not the life more than meat, and the body than 
raiment ?"+ God never intended that men should be 
compelled to spend the best and greatest energies 
of their lives getting enough to eat and wear, but 
He did intend that man by invention should wake 
up the hidden and sleeping powers of nature, and 
roll back the curse, " In the sweat of thy face thou 
shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground," J 
and live with dominion over nature, developing the 
image of God, with which God in the beginning 
created man. "Behold the fowls of the air; for 
they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into 
barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. 
Are ye not much better than they ?"§ Then will the 
lily of the field, which toils not, neither does it spin, 
and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 

*Is. lv.,12, 13. f Math, vi, 25. $Gen. iii., 19. § Math, vi., 26. 



Io8 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

like one of these, be looked upon as reflecting the 
lives of men. Then the wild mania for wealth, 
which makes men grab and grasp from one another 
the good things of life, will be adjudged barbarous 
and uncivilized, like unto the butchering of children 
and offering them as a sacrifice to propitiate the 
gods of harvest. 

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
unto you."* When God's kingdom is established 
on earth, His good things will flow out in such 
abundance that men will live so that the birds of 
the air will be no more at leisure to enjoy them- 
selves, and free from care, than they. 

" Give us this day our daily bread, "j Whoever 
asks for daily bread, for the things necessary to sus- 
tain life and make him comfortable and enjoy him- 
self, may be assured he is asking in accordance 
with God's will. And the experience of God's 
children along this line, of how God has answered 
prayer and supplied the things necessary for 
them, how He has encamped round about them, 
hedged up their ways from dangers unseen and led 
them out finally into green valleys, where the living 
waters flow, is wonderful, and passes even the 
romance of fiction. 

But he who asks God to help him to draw in 
more money than is his equitable portion, and hoards 
away wealth, asks God to act a lie against His 
revealed nature. To expect divine favor while 

*Math. vi , 33. f Math, vi., 11. 



THE LORDS PRAYER. IO9 

leading such a life of selfishness is as great an 
absurdity as a devil talking of his own salvation. 

" And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors."* Commentators have ever tried to say that 
the plain statement of this ^petition is not what 
Jesus meant , that it is not a forgiveness of our 
debts in a pecuniary sense, as it would plainly 
appear on the face of the command. But I will 
show in the next chapter that Jesus meant just 
what He said, and has no need of a commentator 
to tell Him or us what He intended to say ; He 
knew Himself what He wanted to say, and said it. 

" And lead us not into temptation, but deliver 
us from evil."f This can be translated with no vio- 
lation to the original, "and lead us not in temp- 
tation, but deliver us from the Evil One" Now 
when we take into consideration that in this world 
there are temptations on every hand, that we are 
born into the world among temptations, it is evident 
that God's leadings of us, as the world is now, 
must be among temptations, but Jesus has taught 
us to ask that the world may be delivered from the 
Evil One ; that his temptations may be removed 
from the earth and out of the world, and then 
God's leadings of us on earth will not be in tempta- 
tion, but where temptations are no longer. Oh, 
God, let it no longer be that the paths in which 
Thou wilt lead us here on earth shall lie amid 
temptations, but deliver us from the Evil One. 

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 

* Math, vi., 12. f Math, vi., 13. 



IIO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the glory, forever. Amen."* Jesus taught His 
disciples to rest so assuredly on His final victory 
and full establishment of His kingdom of love in 
the world, that He told them to put it in the 
present tense, as if it- were already here. As sure 
as the sun rises and sets in her course over the 
world, so sure will brotherly love command the 
hearts and souls of men on earth, as it now com- 
mands the saints and angels in heaven. " Till 
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in 
no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." 

The word amen means verily, certainly, firm, 
secure, true and faithful. Yes, everything com- 
manded to be prayed for and promised here is firm, 
faithful, true, secure, certain, and will verily come 
to pass. Amen. 

Heaven's highest powers are engaged for the 
good of man. Then why should man be found 
not only fighting against God, but baffling his 
prayers, and frustrating the holiest interests on 
earth, of himself, his wife and children, and 
children's children after him. 

*Math. vi., 13. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE UNJUST STEWARD- 

"pN the parable of the unjust steward, God is rep- 
(fl resented as a "certain king." The other 
characters of the story are two of his subjects, one 
wealthy and the other a poor man. The sacred 
narrative runs thus : " Therefore is the kingdom, 
of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would 
take account of his servants. And when he had 
begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which 
owed him ten thousand talents (or over $15,000,- 
000). But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his 
lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and 
children, and all that he had, and payment to be 
made. The servant therefore fell down and wor- 
shiped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, 
and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that 
servant was moved with compassion, and loosed 
him, and forgave him the debt."* 

The man worshiped the king, paying him the 
full respect due the king from a servant, or the 
duty God requires of men to Him. This man was 
not in shape to pay the $15,000,000 then, but felt 
sure that if he had a little time given him, he could 

* Math, xviii., 23-27. 



112 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

raise the money and pay all the debt. It is evident 
that he was a wealthy man, or he never could have 
made so great a loan from the government, nor 
have had a reasonable hope of raising the money to 
pay so large a debt. However, instead of asking 
him to pay the debt, or any part of it, the king, 
being moved with compassion, forgave him all and 
let him go free. This represents the way God for- 
gives sinners, and this is the force of the story so 
far. The sinner, unlike this man, never could pay 
the debt he owes offended justice, let him try ever 
so hard, or work as long as life may last. The de- 
sign of the story is, to teach how great the forgiv- 
ing mercy of God is toward the sinner in forgiving 
his sins, and that God does it freely and without 
the sinner paying any part of the debt. Illustra- 
tions are like circles ; as a rule, they touch the 
thing which they illustrate only in one place, and 
when we attempt to make them cover more, we do 
violence to the author's intention. 

The next part of the story is : " But the same 
servant went out, and found one of his fellow- 
servants which owed him a hundred pence (about 
$14) ; and he laid hands on him, and took him by 
the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And 
his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and be- 
sought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I 
will pay thee all. And he would not ; but went 
and cast him into prison, till he should pay the 
debt. So when his fellow-servants saw what was 
done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. II3 

their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after 
that he had called him, said unto him, O thou 
wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, be- 
cause thou desiredst me. Shouldest not thou also 
have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even 
as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, 
and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should 
pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall 
my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from 
your hearts forgive not every one his brother their 
trespasses."* 

The proportion that fourteen dollars is to fifteen 
million dollars, as the utmost that any common 
man can be indebted to a wealthy man, is as 
to the mercy God vouchsafes to the man whose sins 
He forgives. If a man whose sins God once for- 
gave grows wealthy and begins to deal hard with 
the weak and poor, and makes them pay debts which 
oppress them, and takes away their comforts of 
life, he is not exercising towards his fellow-men the 
spirit which Jesus Christ did toward him, "Now 
if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
of His." f That man who was forgiven by the 
great King of Heaven, and begins to oppress the 
poor and take advantage of their weakness in 
position by crowding them out and down in busi- 
ness, selling their property, which is to them their 
all, so that he may hold and increase his need- 
less thousands ; God will take away His pardon- 
ing grace from him, and the man will spend his 
v 

* Math, xviii., 28-35. f Rom. viii., 9. 



114 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

eternity with the tormenting devils, whose example 
he imitated on earth. 

When our Lord and Saviour gave the disciples 
the model prayer for men, He added only one foot- 
note, or explanation, which reads : " For if ye for- 
give men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will 
also forgive you, but if ye forgive not men their 
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your 
trespasses."* As if He had thought, Of all places 
where men are most liable to lose the right way, it 
is in the petition where I have told them that the 
utmost measure they can ask for forgiveness of their 
sins is in proportion to the way they forgive the 
debts which their fellow-men owe them. So He 
emphasized it by saying that God would forgive the 
generous man who would not oppress the poor and 
needy, but that He would not forgive the man who 
oppressed the poor and needy, by collecting even 
that which the law would adjudge was his. The 
Greek word in the Lord's Prayer which is trans- 
lated debts, means debts, pecuniary debts, in the 
original, and nothing else, as the word debts means 
in our language. In the foot-note He uses a differ- 
ent word to represent the same thing which is 
translated trespasses in the New Testament. But 
the word is not used in this sense by any of the 
Greek writers. In all the classics, the word means : 
"a fall beside, a false step, a blunder, a defeat." 
To those who have suffered from the tormenting 
oppressiveness of a debt which was more than 

* Math, vi., 14-15. 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. II5 

they could lift without sacrifice, how expressive the 
word the Saviour used to represent the character 
and nature of a debt which is too heavy for the 
poor man to carry, and who is struggling under it. 
A debt threatening to take away a man's property 
makes him feel that he has taken a false step in 
contracting it, that it was a blunder and is a defeat, 
that he has fallen down beside his creditor, at his 
mercy. The word translated trespasses in this 
story of the unjust steward is from the same word 
as that in the foot-note of our Lord's Prayer, and 
certainly means here pecuniary debts. Taking this 
word in its original meaning, then viewing our 
Lord's conclusion in this parable, the prayer which 
He taught us, and its foot-note, we seethe import of 
His teachings. 

It stands out as an essential part of the narrative, 
and must have its application, that this wealthy 
servant used no violence, according to the custom of 
his day ; that he resorted to no fraudulent methods 
nor deceit in any way, to collect his money ; that 
the money was legally coming to him ; that he 
made use of the ordinary course of law, as was 
established by the so-called courts of justice ; that 
he did nothing more than is done in all the courts 
of our land, and that he asked the courts to restore 
to him that which was lawfully his ; yet for this 
the king is represented as taking back the forgive- 
ness and release he had granted the rich man, and 
delivering him to the tormentors, till he should pay 
the debt. 



Il6 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

The question arises : Is it wrong to collect debts? 
If a man gets in our debt, no matter how, must 
we abide his time to pay, and may he never pay us 
at all if he does not choose to do so? And if we 
attempt to collect it, shall we incur God's wrath and 
condemnation? Let us look carefully before we 
generalize. We must take into consideration all 
the essential elements in the narrative, together 
with a rational view of things as they are, before 
we draw our conclusion in the case. 

The first servant was wealthy. He had needless 
thousands and millions. The fourteen dollars which 
he was trying to collect from the poor man formed 
no essential part of his happiness. Without it, life 
was as full and abundant of all needed good as with 
it. It only added that much more to his useless 
and needless wealth. But to the second servant, 
the poor man, the fourteen dollars was his all. It 
was his freedom, his opportunity in life rested on 
it, and without it he was a crushed man. This 
much is certainly taught by the parable, namely, 
no rich man should ever force a poor man to pay a 
debt, when to pay that debt sacrifices his dear inter- 
ests of home and home comforts. In other words, 
wealth can never be counted out against home and 
family joys. The title which a man has to millions 
can never be weighed out against a title which is 
held by the divine oracle given on the morning of 
creation — as the sweat of thy face, thy dominion 
shall be. 

This principle, in embryo, is in our exemption 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. II7 

laws, and enlarges where a man with a family has a 
greater exemption than a single man. In this law, 
the principle is recognized that there is a certain 
amount of property or money which every man is 
entitled to, beyond the power of a man's creditors. 
The law is a shelter to a common man. But the 
practical workings of the law are, for the most part, 
to protect the interests of one poor man against 
another man equally as poor. It often weighs 
down the small tradesman, who is obliged to give 
greater credit to get custom, while the larger dealer, 
who has a monopoly of the business, can refuse 
credit to all who are not certain pay. 

The creditor certainly has a right to protection 
in law for that which he has committed to another 
in the avenues of trade. This is a principle which 
no nation has ever lost sight of, and never can, 
with impunity to the people. It is equity in deal- 
ing to protect the honest and confiding against the 
tricky and dishonest. But our exemption laws, 
good as they are, are very little in the way of the 
fortune-builder, in his progress. His money goes 
out protected by a first mortgage, first bonds, 
mechanic's liens, and against these there are no ex- 
emption laws. 

Nearly all of our railroads were built by the 
money of the common people. This was true, with- 
out an exception, before the government began giv- 
ing her lavish grants, which is also the money of 
the people. The men who built the roads do not 
own them to-day, neither do they nor their chil- 



IIO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

dren have anything for the investment. It was, in 
many cases, a clean steal on the part of the men 
who own the roads to-day, and a sheer loss to the 
men whose money built the roads. These steals 
were made, for the most part, in violation of no 
statutory or common law, and, on the other hand, 
were often aided by the strong arm of the law ; but 
not a single dollar was stolen which was not in vio- 
lation of this parable of our Saviour. 

Of course, in these cases, there was no taking hold 
of throats and casting into prison ; that kind of 
work is not the fashion, but in the end the result 
was the same — the men were put in a helpless con- 
dition and their money forced from them, in viola- 
tion of righteousness and fair dealing. 

The common people seeing their inability to 
compete with the great centers of money, a number 
of small dealers, day laborers, mechanics and farm- 
ers bring their savings of a lifetime and invest them 
in a company, hoping to have something from it 
in old age and to bequeath to their children. The 
scheme is to set on foot, some promising enterprise, 
or to open some archive of nature where the key 
can only be turned by large capital, and so must re- 
main closed against all except the wealthy, unless 
such' companies are formed. The money from peo- 
ple of this class carries along the enterprise till its 
success is assured, and the days of speculation are 
gone. Then the management, in conjunction with 
capital, get up some trouble. The real merits of the 
property are kept in the dark, and it is actually put 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. II9 

under disgrace. The stockholders become discour- 
aged with their property and alarmed at the con- 
duct of their management. A debt is incurred. 
The debt is a small fraction of what the property is 
actually worth, but in time it forces the property to 
sale under the sheriff's hammer. The stockholders 
cannot, and are not disposed to, bid against the 
owner of the claim to save their property, and the 
property is sold for the claim. Or, to put it in 
other words, the stockholders get mad and dis- 
couraged with the management of their company, 
begin scolding and work themselves up into a scare 
that it is all going to be lost anyway, when they 
ought to get down to cool business, go to the bot- 
tom of facts, and let all the sinners in the manage- 
ment know that "the way of transgressors is hard."* 
Then is the time when a little true courage is 
needed, but it is astonishing how meekly the tens 
of thousands in our land permit themselves to be 
robbed in this way, and then quietly submit, as 
if they were to blame and it were a disgrace to 
have invested money in a corporation where any 
men in it afterwards turned out to be rascals. The 
great majority of men who have been successfully 
close economy, in getting some money ahead, if the 
truth were known, have made such investments, 
and, almost without an exception, have lost their 
hard-earned and careful savings in the venture. 
This conduct has made it one of the easiest things 
to steal the property of a corporation. The devil 

* Prov. xiii., 15. 



120 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

has planned it somehow so that it is a downhill road 
so easy that if the management, or a part of the 
management, take a notion to steal a company's 
property, they can do it, and it is almost worth the 
life of any one of the management to try to expose 
the plot or break up the plan. When there is 
trouble in a company, one of the hardest things 
to do is to keep the stockholders from throwing 
down their holdings and thus playing into the 
hands of their robbers, and putting themselves in 
a position where they will be at least in part to 
blame for their loss ; and the designing wreckers of 
the company will comfort themselves that it was 
all the fault of the timid and selfish stockholders, 
and that they had to take the property off their 
hands, when the whole thing was a planned steal. 

Against this kind of robbery our civil courts 
afford no protection. The court takes into considera- 
tion that the rich man has an indisputable claim in 
dollars and cents against this property, and in the 
sale, under the court's order, it brought only enough 
to satisfy this claim. It was a cold, calculated 
steal, planned by the management in conjunction 
with capital, from the beginning, that it was 
against stockholders who had trusted their money 
in the hands of this management, which in fact 
made it more than robbery ; in the addition of 
outraged confidence, is all a question which every 
man in the court may know, but for reason of 
some technicality of law, cannot be made part of 
the case, and so has little or no influence in the 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 121 

decision. It is one thing to know that you have a 
rascal in the court room, and another to have him 
convicted of his crime. 

The president of a company being very fre- 
quently the richest man in the company, courts 
have looked with suspicion on his having claims 
against his company and bringing them into 
court to collect. Judges who have been willing 
to go beyond what was written in law, to do justice, 
have rendered decisions against such presidents, 
knowing how they came by their claim ; but one 
or two caught, and these foxes do not go in that 
beaten path for their game any longer. When they 
want their claim collected by the court, they ask it 
by making a pseudo-transfer of the claim to another 
man. But if this were known in the court to be a 
substitution for the sake of evading the law, would 
it not be set aside as fraud ? It would have to be 
proven so, and established by substantial evidence ; 
but, on the other hand, such a president would 
swear that he made an actual and bona-jide trans- 
fer of the property to this man, and the man had 
already sworn in his petition to the court that he 
purchased it and owned it. So things must go on 
unchecked, although everyone knows in his heart 
that it is actual robbery, and under the cover 
of the law. Man's law is defective and deals only 
with the externals, but God's law deals with the 
secrets of the heart, and there never was a rascal 
who escaped the condemnation of divine law. 

If the property which is stolen effects the interests 



122 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and convenience of the public, as a railroad, the 
people, regardless of this injustice, shower their 
commendations of praise on the new company, for 
getting the road out of the hands of the old man- 
agement, though the new be the same old manage- 
ment, with the small stockholders, whose money 
built the road, left out. So this wrecking of rail- 
roads and other corporations has been systematically 
carried on in this land of churches and courts of 
justice, by men occupying the highest places in our 
land and nation, and also esteemed in the Church 
of God. 

It is true that human law has been reaching 
up towards the divine law. There has been 
more struggling by the bench of our circuit 
and supreme courts, as recorded decisions show, 
than the common sentiment is aware of. Yet, in 
all our great struggles between capital and labor, 
there has been a clear and unbroken line of deci- 
sions in the protection of property, and that property 
has been, without exception, in the hands of the 
plutocrat, pitted against men who were fighting for 
the image which God placed upon them ; fight- 
ing in defence of their homes and their firesides, 
their wives and their families; in a word, all that 
was dear to them was in the balance against need- 
less thousands in the plutocrat's hands ; but money 
outweighed the souls of men in the eyes of the 
court. 

Human laws have been softened wonderfully by 
the influence of Christianity. Men are no longer 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. I 23 

sold for debt. The pound of flesh can no longer be 
exacted. The tortures of pulling men's noses, twist- 
ing their thumbs out of joint and skinning them 
alive for debt, have all passed away before the influ- 
ence of Jesus' teachings. But in all ages, the cruelty 
of the money-lender has been limited only by the com- 
mand of the common people / saying, Thus far shalt 
thy proud oppression come, and no farther. There 
is no power so void of all feeling as the reign of 
money. Money is made by selfishness. It is the 
scepter of the selfish man's ambition. It is a scep- 
ter without reason or regard to justice. It is the 
scepter a small-brained man with a shriveled heart 
can wield, and the only one that he can successfully. 
Great fortunes are not made by superior merit and 
ability, but by superior grabbing and robbing 
the weak and poor of their God-appointed rights. 
The credit which we give the industrious citizen 
over the lazy sluggard, the sober, economical man 
over the spendthrift and drunkard, is that of a good 
citizen over a poor one. But these relations do not 
hold between the rich and the poor, or common 
people. The wealthy are rich from their intense 
selfishness, and our poor are often poor because 
they are shut out of work by the rich taking the 
opportunities from them, and their poverty or idle- 
ness is enforced, and not their choice nor their 
fault. Great wealth is heartless, oppressive, and, 
by the co-relation of forces, where a few have 
great wealth, the many have severe poverty. For 
the very reason that some have it, others do not 



124 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

have it. The palace of the millionaire is flanked by- 
glutted almshouses and over-crowded jails. 

If a common man puts his money into a company, 
so as to be able to compete with the wealthy and 
other strong firms, as a rule, the management con- 
spires to steal it away from him, and usually suc- 
ceeds. The other chance he has for his small hold- 
ings is to attempt to stem the tide of business alone, 
and in case he does, sooner or later, the rising tide 
of fierce competition will sweep him down. 

The mortgage a man put on his farm fifteen 
years ago, that was not worth half as much as the 
farm, has gathered strength, till, to-day, it covers 
over the entire farm, while every cent of the inter- 
est has been promptly paid. The farmer has 
worked hard all these fifteen years, and has only- 
been able to make enough to give his family a plain 
living and pay the interest. Were the farm sold 
to-day, which it would surely be, in case of the 
man's death, it would not bring more than enough 
to pay the original mortgage. The farmer's invest- 
ment, which was one-half the value of the farm, is 
swept entirely away from him ; while the equal in- 
vestment of the money-lender has paid him, in this 
time, more, in the aggregate, in interest, than his 
entire investment, and the original investment has 
doubled its value, counting value in land and the 
products of life and everything which forms the 
bases of the common people's interests financially. 
The total debt of the country is increasing much 
faster than the wealth of the country. Farms by 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 125 

the tens of thousands are sinking under mortgages 
for the same reason that Israel groaned in the days 
of Amos, viz., "making the ephah small and the 
shekel great, that we may buy the poor for silver, 
and the needy for a pair of shoes ; yea, and sell 
the refuse of the wheat. "* 

What good does it do the farmer to learn that 
English capitalists and Wall street are ringing the 
changes on good money and sound money, when the 
money has become so good that the mortgage on 
his farm has doubled its hold and power, when the 
money is so sound it takes double the amount of 
the product of his farm to purchase it that it did 
ten or fifteen years ago ? It is a good thing for the 
plutocrats in England and this country who hold 
our securities, to see that their money has doubled 
its power over the property on which they have 
their grip ; but it is an entirely different thing 
when this appreciation of money threatens to cost 
a man his farm, his home, and reduce him to the 
level of a serf. There threatens to be more evic- 
tions from farms in our country, and more heart- 
less ones, than all -the far-famed evictions of Ireland. 
Do we not appear to be approaching the condition 
of Israel, when all that the poor have will be bought 
with demonetized silver, and the poor themselves 
will be bought, in the strong language of the 
Hebrew prophet, for a pair of shoes? 

Then there is an additional light which must view 
this subject, and I desire to approach it with great 

*Amos -viii., 5, 6. 



126 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

care, lest my intentions be misunderstood. Men 
ought to pay their debts. The command of the 
apostle is, " Owe no man anything, but to love one 
another."* This is our marching order, and cer- 
tainly good legal advice. It is also very wrong 
to steal. The eighth commandment is, "Thou shalt 
not steal."| Nevertheless, God abrogated this great 
law in the relation of the Hebrew slaves and their 
Egyptian masters. When the children of Israel 
were about to go free from their Egyptian bondage, 
it is recorded, "And the Lord said unto Moses, 
Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every 
man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman 
shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that 
sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels 
of gold, and raiment : and ye shall put them upon 
your sons, and upon your daughters ; and ye shall 
spoil the Egyptians."]; 

These Egyptian masters had robbed the Hebrew 
slaves of their opportunities in life, and of their 
hard service all their days, and of their fathers 
before them, and it was a little thing if they took 
away with them some of the gold, and silver, and 
raiment, which was, by the title of fairness between 
man and man, coming to them. The same princi- 
ple was recognized in the days of our African 
slaves stealing chickens and turkeys. It was a 
subject for jests both North and South, and was 
not looked upon as criminal, as it would have been 
in a man who was not a slave. 

*Rom. xiii., 8. fEx. xx., 15. J Ex. xi., 2, and iii., 22. 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 127 

Jesus up at Nazareth took the text of His first 
sermon from the prophecy of Isaiah, where it is 
said of Him that He would come "to proclaim 
the acceptable year of the Lord." * And when He 
had closed the book, He began to say unto them : 
" This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." f 
The acceptable year of the Lord was the year of 
jubilee. The year of jubilee came every fiftieth 
year, and in this year all debts were remitted, all 
Hebrew slaves were released and liberated, all 
lands which had been taken for debt were restored 
to the families to which they had been at first al- 
lotted by divine direction, because God said it was 
His land and for all His people. The law reads : 
"In the day of atonement shall ye make the 
trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye 
shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty 
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants 
thereof : it shall be a jubilee unto you ; and ye 
shall return every man unto his possessions, and ye 
shall return every man unto his family. If thou 
sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buyest aught of 
thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one 
another ; but thou shalt fear thy God : for 
I am the Lord your God. The land shall not 
be sold forever : for the land is mine ; for ye are 
strangers and sojourners with me." J 

The principle is clearly set forth here that the 
land and the productive powers of nature belong to 
God, that He holds them for all His people alike, 

*Is. lxi., 2. -j-Eukeiv., 21. $ Lev. xxv., 9, 10, 14, 17, 23. 



128 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and does not allow any man or class of men to 
monopolize these by any superior title which they 
may claim to have acquired over the poor and per- 
haps weaker men. The law is a great and ef- 
fectual check, if enforced, against the greediness of 
wealth and power. Had it been obeyed, Israel 
never could have fallen into the power of the 
plutocrats ; intelligence would have been general 
among the masses, the moral sentiment and good 
sense of the common people would have held the 
nation true to God, while prosperity, peace and 
happiness would have reigned as nowhere else in 
the world. 

It may be said that this sounds like repudiation. 
We answer, there is a high sense in which repudia- 
tion would become as essential to the nation's 
freedom and happiness, as it has been to rise up 
and throw off the yoke of the despot, and break 
the chains from the slave which his master had 
unrighteously bound about him. The great ques- 
tion our generation has to solve, if it would be 
true to the task assigned it by Almighty God, is 
that there is a limit to the right of title, and if any 
man goes beyond that limit, he is a robber of his 
fellow-man, and the prince of sinners. 



CHAPTER IX. 




THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 

*HERE is nothing written that excels or 
equals in love the discourse of our Saviour, 
where He tells the disciples of the Holy Ghost, 
which proceedeth from the Father, and whom He 
would send to them after He was gone. He rose 
even above all His former addresses ; it seemed as 
if the deepest fountains of love had been broken 
up and flowed out in full tide of heavenly affection, 
with the announcement of the sending of the Holy 
Spirit to the world. 

Jesus Christ is love revealed through human flesh.. 
John tells us that "God is love,"* but he had 
no need to write that the Holy Spirit is love; for 
it is love, the essence of love, and nothing else., 
While God revealed Himself as the loving Jehovah, 
He also revealed Himself as the God of battles, as; 
the righteous God, in sending a flood to drown the 
wicked inhabitants from off the face of the earth, 
and appeared unto Moses amid the crashing 
thunder, the fire and smoke, on Mount Sinai. 
Jesus Christ came to us in the weakness of human 
flesh, and in His heroic, noble battles for truth and 

* 1 John iv., 8. 

129 



I3O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the down -trodden, it is altogether possible that men 
might take offense against both Him and the Father, 
through ignorance and misunderstanding. But 
with the Holy Spirit there are no such attendants ; 
the Holy Spirit is love, love alone. It reveals 
itself to men neither through matter nor material 
force, intelligence nor intellectual strength, but is 
simply love for men, and is God. Men cannot sin 
against the Holy Spirit unless they sin against love, 
love to God and love for their fellow-men. 

The sins which are the result of ignorance, or 
any weakness of humanity or the human flesh, 
cease when the soul is released from the body. The 
exciting causes die with the flesh, and so are par- 
donable, and men committing them may have their 
souls washed from the stains of the sin of the flesh 
and be forever clean and pure in heaven. They 
are not sins which the Scriptures call sins unto 
death. John writes : "If any man see his brother 
sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and 
he shall give him life for them that sin not unto 
death. There is a sin unto death : I do not say 
that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is 
sin: and there is a sin not unto death."* Here 
John clearly divides sins into two classes. The one 
class is pardonable and the other is not. There 
is such a thing as being overtaken in a fault, but 
they who are spiritual are commanded to restore 
such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering 
themselves, lest they also be tempted. These sins 

* 1 John v., 16, 17. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. I3I 

of the flesh are common to all men, and are par- 
donable, for they come from the weakness of our 
frail human nature. 

But there is the sin of selfishness, which is not a 
sin of the flesh. It is a sin of the soul, which com- 
mands the flesh and brings it into subjection, and 
the flesh is subjected not willingly, but by reason of 
that which subjected the same. Selfishness is not 
a blunder, nor a stumbling, nor a weakness, nor 
from heated passion, nor the result of an over- 
excited appetite, but is the cool design and deliber- 
ate, determined course of the heart and mind, or 
soul of the man. All the actions of selfishness are 
in direct antagonism to love, so it is utterly im- 
possible for a man to be under the control of love, 
and at the same time to be selfish. John very 
logically goes on writing that which he holds as a 
self-evident fact, when he says : "We know that 
whosoever is born of God sinneth not."* God is 
love, and all His dealings with men are in love, and 
he that is born of God is love, like unto his Father, 
and cannot be selfish, for whosoever is born of God 
sinneth not. Selfishness is of the devil. Selfishness 
is devil nature. Men who are selfish, Jesus Christ 
told us, are the children of the devil. A man can- 
not be born of two fathers, neither can he be of two 
natures, and especially so when these are diamet- 
rically opposite and destructive the one of the other. 

There is no use in praying for a devil ; he cannot 
repent, and would not. But you might just as well 

*1 John v., 18. 



I32 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

pray for a devil as for a thoroughly selfish man. 
And John says to us, "I do not say that you shall 
pray for it." Emphasizing the same thought, John 
says : " If a man say, I love God, and hateth his 
brother, he is a liar."* The word brother is not 
used here in the sense of being a member of the 
same church, but brother in human flesh. The hat- 
ing here spoken of is not being mad at somebody 
on account of some irritating thing which has 
come between two or more, but it is in the wide 
sense of an absolute want of brotherly love which, 
in its workings and effect, is a hating of our fellow- 
men. John, going on, makes his own commentary 
on this passage, and says : " For he that loveth not 
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love 
God whom he hath not seen? And this command- 
ment have we from him, That he who loveth God 
love his brother also."f " He that loveth not his 
brother abideth in death. We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren."]; John, the son of thunder, and at the 
same time the most loving of all the apostles, rises 
to the climax of his charge against these selfish sin- 
ning men, when he wrote: "Whosoever hateth 
his brother is a murderer : and ye know that no 
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."§ 

On one occasion, when Jesus was at dinner with 
His disciples, the common people came in and sat 
down with Him and His disciples. "And when 

*1 John iv., 20. f 1 John iv., 20, 21. J 1 John iii., 14. § 1 John 
iii., 15. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 1 33 

the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, 
Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners ? 
But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, 
They that be whole need not a physician, but they 
that are sick. But go ye and learn what that mean- 
eth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice : for 
I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance."* There was an entire want of love in 
the Pharisees for their brethren, and the want left 
no vacuum, but their hearts were filled with con- 
tempt, jealousy and hatred against them. They 
thought the world was made especially for them- 
selves, and while they had far over what was their 
fair portion, they were not contented, but be- 
grudged the poor any favors that might fall to them, 
and hated and classed them as on a lower plane of 
society. "They trusted in themselves that they 
were righteous, and despised others, "f But Jesus 
told them, " I came not to call the righteous, but 
sinners to repentance." 

Self -righteousness is the sure child of pride, and 
pride is the certain offspring of selfishness. It 
would have been a fruitless mission for Jesus to 
have come to this world to call these kind of men. 
He might as well have gone to hell to convert 
devils. 

Brotherly love is the test which Jesus gave of his 
Messiahship. When great John the Baptist lay 
confined in his lonely dungeon in the prison of the 
gloomy castle of Fort Machaerus, the great heart, 

*Math. ix M 11-13. f Luke xviii., 9. 



134 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

sinking by physical lassitude and from despair of 
life, had no hope but in Jesus. Yet he saw no fan 
in Jesus' hand, nor flame burning up the unquench- 
able fire, nor axe being laid at the root of the tree, 
as he, prompted by divine inspiration, had an- 
nounced Jesus as coming to the world ; so he sent 
messengers to Jesus, saying, " Art thou he that 
should come, or do we look for another?"* Jesus 
did not answer the question directly, but said to 
them, "Go and show John again those things 
which ye do hear and see : the blind receive their 
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the 
deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have 
the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, 
whosoever shall not be offended in me.''! Here 
we find Jesus calling attention to the fact that the 
evidence of His divinity to men is in pure, unselfish 
love, exercising itself toward all who are oppressed 
either with poverty or any manner of disease or 
sickness, all of which are the work of the devil. 

John knew God in His power of justice, in de- 
throning wickedness in high places, but he failed 
to see the Messiah in Jesus through His unpretend- 
ing works of mercy and love to all men. But Jesus 
knew as soon as John's attention was called to the 
fact, the great heart would grasp the divine truth ; 
so He simply told the messengers to call John's at- 
tention to Jesus' acts of love and mercy, so unself- 
ishly and indiscriminately bestowed. Then, Jesus 
apparently fearing that His conduct might cast a 

*Math. xi., 3. fMath. xi., 4-6. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. I35 

reflection on John the Baptist, added : " Verily 
I say unto you, Among them that are born of 
women, there hath not risen a greater than John 
the Baptist : notwithstanding, he that is least in 
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." * 

John was excelled by none, mighty in eloquence, 
mighty in power to command men, terrible to sin- 
ners in his convictions of righteousness, sweeping 
in his condemnation against the guilty, mighty in 
his heroism for truth, and faithful even unto death 
in its cause ; but the strong nature failed to see 
God in love alone. And Jesus said that whosoever 
should see divinity in perfect love exercised through 
disinterested benevolence was greater than John 
the Baptist. Not even righteousness, nor justice, 
nor hope, nor trust in God, nor talents, nor power — 
nothing alone is the clear image of God, but love. 
"Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; 
but the greatest of these is charity." f 

And where John was wanting, the world has 
been much more wanting in all ages. The found- 
ers of all other religions, even the elders of the 
Jewish temple, never conceived the mystical love 
which was the essence of all Jesus did and said, 
and which Paul beautifully calls charity. For this 
reason, when " Jesus came unto his own, his own 
received him not. But as many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of 
God." J No act prompted by selfishness can have 
any merit in the sight of God. A man may preach 

*Math. xi., 11. f 1 Cor. xiii., 13. % John i., 11, 12. 



I36 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and pray, make temperance speeches, lead a moral 
life as pure as a Pharisee, build churches, bestow 
his goods to feed the poor, and give his body to be 
burned, yet if it is done without this love, it is as 
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. But any act 
done for love's sake, though it be only " The giv- 
ing to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of 
cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I 
say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward."* 

It is said, on a certain occasion Jesus met a man 
who was so possessed of a devil that he was both 
blind and dumb, and Jesus healed him, insomuch 
that the blind and the dumb both saw and spake. 
And the people were all amazed, and said, " Is not 
this the son of David?" \ The people were aston- 
ished at the power of the wonderful work which 
had been performed, and felt to some degree the 
celestial, magic, mystical love which prompted the 
act. But the Pharisees, on the other hand, blind in 
their selfishness, were dead to all true love for their 
fellow-men. They saw nothing God-like in it. It 
struck their selfish nature unkindly, and was an 
offense, from the unobserved reason that it was 
a reproof to their lives, and they began their usual 
abuse of Jesus, saying: "This fellow doth not 
cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the 
devils." % 

This conduct of the Pharisees was the occasion 
of the remarkable utterance of our Saviour when 
He said : " Wherefore I say unto you, All manner 

* Math, x., 42. f Math, xii., 22, 23. % Math, xii., 24. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 137 

of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men : 
but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall 
not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speak- 
eth a word against the Son of man, it shall be for- 
given him : but whosoever speaketh against the 
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in 
this world, neither in the world to come. Either 
make the tree good, and his fruit good ; or 
else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt : 
for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of 
vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? 
for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh."* 

These Pharisees were the wealthy men or monop- 
olists of Palestine, and at the same time the rulers 
of the Jewish Church. They counted their formal 
service to the temple religion, but they had no love 
for humanity at large, which was their sin. They 
grabbed the productive powers of Palestine, gloried 
in their wealth, thought it made them better than 
the poor ; they had no sympathy for the poor, and 
not even the healing of a poor, possessed demoniac, 
whose eyes were opened and ears unstopped, could 
awaken a chord of sympathy or demand a respect 
for Jesus. They were dead in selfishness, and so 
had sinned against the Holy Ghost. 

Mark puts it, " But he that shall blaspheme 
against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but 
is in danger of eternal damnation ; because they 
said, he hath an unclean spirit."* Men whose 

* Math, xii., 31-35. f Mark iii., 29-30. 



I38 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

lives are a menace to freedom and a blight to the 
happiness and prosperity of the masses, have sinned 
against the Holy Ghost, for if they had not so 
sinned, they could not be so unmindful of the rights 
of others, and be so greedy to become wealthy and 
hold the productive powers of nature from the 
masses, in their hands. Such men, especially if 
reproved, will sneer at the work of trying to 
lift up the poor and needy as foolish, and if it 
commands a popular influence, will denounce it as 
the work of a devil. And here was the evidence 
to Mark and the Saviour that these men had sinned 
against the Holy Ghost. 

Jesus says, " By their fruits ye shall know them. 
A good tree will bring forth good fruit, and an evil 
tree will bring forth evil fruit." It mattered not to 
Jesus what a man's profession was, or what his 
standing was estimated to be by his fellow-men ; the 
question was whether his life was a blessing to 
mankind, or whether the effect of it was evil. If 
the man was actuated in his life by the motive of 
love to and for the good of his fellow-men, the 
fruits of his life would unquestionably be good and 
the happiness of humanity would be larger by his 
living in the world ; but if he was controlled in his 
life by selfishness, the effects of his life would be 
hurtful, and the general happiness of men would 
be less from his being in the world. He closed 
with his characteristic epithet for the scribes, Phari- 
sees and Sadducees, saying, "O generation of 
vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



39 



for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh."* Their lips could not help reflecting 
their selfishness and their want of all love to men. 
Their sins never can be forgiven in this world, 
neither in the world to come, for their sinning 
shows that the entire tissue of their souls is corrupt, 
that the fibers of brotherly love have been eaten 
away by the cancer of selfishness, and this cancer 
forms the centre of the nerve action of their entire 
spirits and souls ; so it would be impossible for 
them to speak good things. 

Paul, in writing to the wealthy Hebrews, ex- 
horts them to lay aside, in a manner, the principles 
of the doctrines of Christ, and to go on to perfec- 
tion, that is, to the fullness of the gospel ; or, in 
other words, to lay aside the doctrines of baptism, 
and of the laying on of hands, and of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead and of eternal judgment. There is 
something of vastly more importance to a world of 
men who are sinking in sin and under the hard 
yoke of oppression, than the methods of church 
worship, the mode of baptism, or the statements of 
Polemic theology. These have their place, but 
that place is secondary ; they must always be held 
in subordination, and there must be a going on to 
the great principle of Jesus Christ, which is 
brotherly love to all men, with its fountain-head 
from God the Father. Paul's warnings are fear- 
ful to them who heed not his exhortation: "For 
as touching those who were once enlightened," he 

* Math. xii M 34. 



I4O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

says, " and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were 
made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the 
good word of God, and the powers of the age to 
come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew 
them again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to 
themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to 
an open shame."* It is a very easy thing for a 
wealthy, selfish plutocrat to be a zealous sectarian 
and substitute zeal for his denomination, instead of 
religion, while he is sinking his soul in selfishness, 
led on by the ambition for wealth and power. So 
Paul says, Let go your Church doctrines for a little 
while, so that brotherly love may have free course, 
and a great many of you wealthy men will see that 
you are not in harmony with Jesus Christ at all. 
He warns them of the danger of their condition of 
hopelessly falling away, where there would be 
neither hope nor possibility of pardon ; seeing they 
have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, 
and put Him to open shame. 

James says : " Do not rich men oppress you, and 
draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they 
blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are 
called?" \ To oppress the poor is to crucify Jesus 
Christ afresh, and to put Him to an open shame. 
" Superfluity on the one hand, and dire want on 
the other — the millionaire and the tramp — are the 
complements each of the other." \ The grasping 
and the holding of wealth thwarts the sacrifice of 
the Saviour, and is in the same spirit of the men 

*Heb. vi., 1-6. (R. V.) f James ii., 6, 7. t Josiah Strong. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 141 

who nailed Him to the cross eighteen hundred 
years ago. It puts Jesus to open shame, that His 
life of love and sacrifice should be so ignored and 
frustrated, and that by men who wear His name 
and profess to follow in His footsteps. 

The Saviour warned men of this great danger of 
riches in His parable of the sower, saying: " He 
that receiveth seed among the thorns is he that 
heareth the word ; and the care of this world, and 
the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he 
becometh unfruitful." * Paul wrote to Timothy, 
saying : " They that will be rich fall into tempta- 
tion and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful 
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdi- 
tion. For the love of money is the root of all evil : 
which while some coveted after, they have erred 
from the faith, and pierced themselves through with 
many sorrows." \ There seems to be one thing 
which can make an exception to the grand old doc- 
trine of the perseverance of the saints, and that is 
selfishness fired and fed by increasing money, 
wealth and power. This, perhaps, and this alone, 
can make a man who was once in grace to be in 
grace no longer. This formed the only exception 
to the Saviour's whosoever will, when He told the 
Pharisees that He came not to call the righteous. 
There seems to be no other sin but selfishness, in 
which a man can go so far that the grace of 
God cannot follow after him, and where sin 
abounds there make grace to more abound. Away 

* Math, xiii., 22. f 1 Tim. vi., 9, 10. 



I42 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

down in the dark swamps of iniquity, from the 
deepest mire of moral corruption, the servants of 
God gather many of the brightest diamonds to be- 
deck the Saviour's brow. 

The love of gold and gain, indulged and stimu- 
lated by large success, eats up all the nobler nature 
of a man, while it leaves an outward profession of 
Christianity standing around a heart which is to- 
tally depraved. Such were the whited sepulchers, 
with their spotless, pure, outward character, beauti- 
ful as polished marble ; while within there was 
rottenness of dead men's bones, and all unclean- 
ness. Human flesh is the finest of all the animal 
kingdom, and in proportion its decaying stench is 
the most offensive. In like manner, there is noth- 
ing equal in vileness and sinfulness to the dead and 
decaying spiritual graces in man. 

These whited sepulchers will talk of redeeming 
grace from memory and of religious experiences so 
essentially true to life, that they not only deceive 
themselves, but they deceive the elect. To hear 
them talk is to know that their hearts must have 
been " touched with a live coal from off the altar of 
God."* Of these men the Saviour said, " Ye hypo- 
crites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This 
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and 
honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from 
me.") The Saviour says that these men will go up to 
the judgment bar of God, saying: "Lord, Lord, 
have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy 

*Is. vi., 6-7. fMath. xv., 7-8. 



THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



43 



•name have cast out devils, and in thy name done 
wonderful works? And then will I profess unto 
them, I never knew you : Depart from me, ye that 
work iniquity."* The world must learn the lesson, 
that not every one who saith, " Lord, Lord, shall 
enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth 
the will of my Father which is in heaven, "f The 
world is advancing along this line, and every year 
making less of profession and measuring men more 
by what they really are. It is not what a man once 
was, or how piously and smoothly he may talk about 
his goodness and honesty, but how nearly his life is 
conformed to and patterned after the man Christ 
Jesus, or, in other words, all that is pure, honest 
and generous. Men who are epistles of the gospel, 
read and known of all men, are what the world 
must have. 

Adam and Eve once were pure and holy, but they 
fell. Their fall was caused by selfishness, and in so 
doing, threw their natures out of harmony with the 
great law of heaven — love, brotherly love. If the 
first pair of the human race, created perfect in holi- 
ness, sinned and fell away from that divine life, 
need we think it any incredible thing that the same 
power should make men who were once children of 
God by regeneration, to fall away from God and 
purity, holiness and happiness? 

The devils were once perfectly holy and lived 
with divine life in heaven and walked in the very 
presence of God Himself. But, through the power 

*Math. vii., 22, 23. f Math, vii., 21. 



144 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

of selfishness, they fell; fell beyond the reach of 
redemption and hope of pardon, or ever regaining 
those blissful seats. So man, who has been re- 
deemed from the power of reigning sin, may fall 
away ; but if he does, his fall will be like Lucifer's, 
never to be regained nor to retrace his steps. He 
has sinned willfully. His sin has been not by weak, 
blundering humanity, but by the choice of the soul, 
choosing death rather than life, selfishness rather 
than love. 

The sin of the Holy Ghost is not a single act. It 
is no mysterious something which a man rnay 
stumble upon as an accident of his life. But it is a 
state, a condition of nature, a habit of life, chosen 
deliberately, calmly and determinately. It is a soul 
given over to and dominated by selfishness and dead 
to brotherly love. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 

And what is life to man ? 
Is it merely to exist, to breathe, to eat 
and to drink? If this be true, then man is nothing 
more than a brute. The brute is an animal, and 
that is his all. Man is not only an animal of the 
highest order, but in his organization God placed 
His own image. " And God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness ; and let them 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all 
the earth, and over every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in 
his own image, in the image of God created he 
him." * The image which God placed upon man of 
Himself was the supremacy of the will of man over 
the creature, animate and inanimate. In the own- 
ership and control of property, man experiences a 
sense of divinity. 

Man is a trinity. He feels, he thinks, he wills, 
these three ; but the greatest of these is will. The 
brute feels, and has a low form of thought ; but his 
will must be subjected to man's will to fill his des- 

* Gen. i., 26, 27. 

145 



I46 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

tined end in life. Jesus, when on earth, recognized 
this image of God in man, this sovereignty of the 
will. Only in one condition did Jesus ever appear 
to confess impotency. But it was not that He had 
abdicated His omnipotence or the almighty power of 
God within Him. It was the condition which con- 
fronted Him. It was when He stood before the 
will and choice of men, that He said: "How 
often would I have gathered thy children together, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not!"* Jesus Christ an- 
nounced His truth drawn from none of the school 
of philosophy. He compounded with none. He 
stood independent of all the rulers of the earth. 
He announced His great truth, " Yea, yea, and 
nay, nay." But whether men would do as He 
commanded, was in the domain of the empire of 
their wills, into which He would not enter, save by 
the moral sense of right and wrong appealing to 
their election and choice. Though He was God in 
flesh and His whole being opposed and contravened 
sin in all its forms, He would assume no arbitrary 
control over the wills of men, even to defeat it. For 
Him to have done so would have been to impeach 
the image and sway conferred on man at his crea- 
tion. 

We saw, in the preceding chapter, that men who 
sinned against the Holy Ghost did it by a calm, 
deliberate choice of the will ; that it was not a 
sin of the feelings, the appetite, the passions, neither 

* Math, xxiii., 37. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 147 

compelled by environment. The will is the rudder 
which guides the man in his course, and in its con- 
trol the soul is the indisputed, absolute dictator. 
Where the will is for sin and selfishness, the whole 
being of the man is moving from God towards 
Satan ; pride is the breeze which swells his sails, 
and eternal sin is the harbor in view. All other 
sins men commit under some degree of protest or 
other, save selfishness. The drunkard knows he is 
doing wrong, and the harlot feels she is an outcast. 
But the selfish man, gaining wealth, rejoiceth in 
his iniquity, and as he gains, feels he is becoming 
more and more a god, though it be like the god of 
this world. The will is the spirit of the image of 
God in man. When this is perverted, the con- 
science is silenced. They " sin willfully," as Paul 
says, and "there remaineth no more sacrifice for 
sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment 
and fiery indignation, which shall devour the 
adversaries."* 

The battles for liberty and self-government have 
been fought for the individual sovereignty of the 
will and the right of the individual ownership of 
property. Take away a man's liberty of self-gov- 
ernment and his right to the ownership of property, 
and you have gone a long way in defacing the 
image which God placed upon him. As man is 
finite, so this sovereignty has its limit in meets and 
bounds. It is a great blessing to have a good stom- 
ach and the means to supply it with good and 

*Heb. x., 26, 27. 



I48 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

proper food. In being so and doing so is happiness, 
joy, pleasure and length of days. But when its 
proper limits are passed, there are gluttony, misery, 
disgrace, and the wicked shall not live out half 
their days. So Adam and Eve, in reaching forth 
for more than was meat, instead of enlarging their 
dominion, surrendered it to Satan, in a great meas- 
ure, both for themselves and their posterity. The 
great struggle of God with the human race ever 
since has been to regain that which was lost in 
Eden and restore the world to God, to whom it 
rightfully belongs, for the use of His children for 
whom He built it. When the great battle between 
right and wrong, righteousness and sin, between 
selfishness and brotherly love shall have been fought 
in the world (and I doubt not for the universe), the 
hosts of sin o'erthrown, God will announce to His 
angels to take down the framework of the world, 
and the "angel standing upon the sea and upon 
the earth with uplifted hand to heaven shall sware 
by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created 
heaven, and the things that therein are, and the 
earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, 
and the things which are therein, that there shall be 
time no longer."* 

" The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; 
the world, and they that dwell therein," \ for He 
made them. God created the world out of nothing, 
so He is the rightful owner and governor of it. It 
is sorrowful to think that, after God had made the 

*Rev. x.,6. f?s. xxiv., 1. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. I49 

world, Satan should wrest it from His grasp, and 
that when God created man and proposed to honor 
him with being the agent to redeem the world from 
Satan's grasp, the very first pair should- put them- 
selves under the dominion and control of Satan, and 
that during the long six thousand years of the race, 
God should wait and work, trying to persuade man 
to throw off the yoke of Satan and turn to freedom 
and happiness ; but man would not. " All day 
long," said God, "I have stretched forth my hands 
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."* " Be- 
cause I have called, and ye refused ; I have 
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; but 
ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would 
none of my reproof. "f The world is under the 
agonies of sin to-day, because men will not rise up 
and throw off the power of Satan's thralldom, and 
God cannot compel them to do it and leave them to 
act under the direction of their wills, until He 
shall triumph by the almighty power of truth tak- 
ing hold of the hearts of men. God's ownership 
and control of the earth was usurped by Satan in 
the beginning, is held now by his deceit and the 
assistance of his aides-de-camp, who are strong, 
selfish men, following the example of their father. 
Jesus repeatedly announced that His errand to the 
world was to break the hold Satan has on the earth, 
through the redemption of the human race. Hear 
Him announcing, " Now is the judgment of this 
world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast 

*Rom. x., 21. fProv. i., 24, 25. 



150 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me."* "The prince of this 
world cometh, and hath nothing in me,"j- " because 
the prince of this world is judged."]; People some- 
times wonder why Jesus allows so many sorrows, 
heart-aches, sicknesses, deaths and disappointments 
to come to men. Jesus does not let a single sorrow 
or pain touch a human heart, that it is possible for 
Him to help, and leave man as a free agent. There 
is no man who would not rebel at the thought of 
God taking away his free agency and reducing him 
to a machine, directed by dead fatality — by the 
compulsion of God's arbitrary command. Paul 
calls Satan the "god of this world," because men 
will chose to follow him more than God, and from 
the devil originally come all the trials of men. 

Men work hard amidst all this great abundance, 
and often get nothing but the plainest living, and 
every stroke of their labor is oftentimes little above 
a slave, under the eye and dictation of a cruel task- 
master or boss. They are worked like machines, 
and the larger part of the fruits of their toil goes to 
fill the coffers of other men. While this state of 
things remains, we may expect discontent, and that 
discontent will increase as intelligence increases 
among the masses. It is the leaven of righteousness 
working in the lump, and it will never cease agitat- 
ing the hearts of men till the whole lump is leavened. 
The fires of divine truth are lighted by the breath 
of Jesus Christ, and He will see to it that they do 

*John xii., 31-32. fjohn xiv., 30. JJohn xvi , 11. 






THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 151 

not go out until the world is redeemed. God the 
Father is discontented with such a condition of 
things. Jesus is seeing the travail of His soul and is 
not satisfied, but that satisfaction will ere long come 
in the salvation of His people. The sin of the 
strong man against the poor, taking the effects and 
results of their labors, and depriving them of 
ruling over themselves, is exactly the same as Satan 
taking the world away from God, who made it. 
The sins are not only alike, but they are one and the 
same. To rob God is to rob men ; to rob men is to 
rob Jesus Christ. No wonder that Jesus called the 
poor His brethren. They are brethren in the 
strongest ties — the ties of suffering and enduring 
wrongs. God has prepared the nations of the earth 
so that they are knit together, and Jesus is' stirring 
the hearts of the people as never before. It is not 
visionary to prophesy that we are in the beginning 
of the great strife which will lead on to the uni- 
versal battle, when the hosts of the Lord shall gather 
for battle at Armageddon, the mountain of the 
gospel, as spoken of by John in The Revelation. 
What foolishness it is for men to stay under the 
thralldom of Satan's oppression ! Why should the 
masses be wronged any longer, merely to let a few 
wealthy men indulge their greed and pride ? " Do 
not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which 
ye are called?"* 

It is the work of the devil which hides from the 
eyes of men the wonderful good things God has 

*James ii., 7. 



152 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

stored away in the earth for His people. And 
where men have listened to the voice of God from 
His Word, the abundance of the storehouse of 
nature has always begun to flow out. To the light 
of Christian civilization we are indebted for all our 
great improvements and developments of nature 
over the aboriginals of this country, or our ances- 
tors in Europe a thousand years ago. The shrill 
whistle of the locomotive has not been heard where 
the name of Jesus has not gone before, and the 
clicking of telegraphy is not known beyond the ken 
of His truth. Where Satan is foiled in keeping 
men in heathen darkness and ignorance, and the 
minds of the people, illuminated and stimulated by 
Christian civilization, discover nature's treasures 
and wake up her sleeping forces, Satan bids mo- 
nopolists grasp them as speedily as possible from 
the reach of the common people, and the more rap- 
idly the enlightened mind brings forth the un- 
known productive powers of nature, the more 
speedily mighty corporations and wealthy men 
come into existence, and the more effectually Satan's 
work is done in robbing the common people. To 
make the earth " bring forth and bud, that it may 
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater,"* 
and to awaken the sleeping forces of nature, is 
defeating Satan's meanness against men. It is man 
in the image of God carrying on God's designs in 
His work of creation and restoring nature to the kind 
purpose for which God intended it and made it. 
* Is. lv., 10. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 153 

It was this noble spirit which fired the hearts of our 
forefathers to endure privations and hardships in 
felling the forests of this country ; and they did it 
with a hearty good- will and zest, for they had re- 
spect unto the recompense of the reward that the 
succeeding generations should enjoy larger oppor- 
tunities than they themselves had, or any nation 
ever possessed. They did it, not that bulls and 
bears might have a hellish spree, piling up great 
fortunes at the expense of the sorrows and rights of 
the many. But as God's kind intentions toward 
men were greatly frustrated by Satan, so our fore- 
fathers' kind intentions toward their succeeding 
generations are being greatly frustrated by the agents 
of Satan doing his work and following his example, 
and in the spirit of their master. As soon as 
nature's storehouse is unlocked and begins to pour 
out its abundance, they grasp it and tie it up in 
some great monopoly to make millions with, while 
the poor man would gladly eat of the crumbs which 
fall from the rich man's table. 

Although nature's storehouses were not opened 
up as they are now, before the days of the pluto- 
crats, if a man were poor, it was because of some 
severe misfortune, shiftlessness or drunkenness. 
Enforced idleness was unknown. But now, tens 
of thousands of men are out of work, who are in- 
dustrious and would gladly work if they could find 
it ; but the rich have seized and are holding the 
opportunities of life and the pursuit of happiness 
from the many — the door is shut against them. 



154 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Kind Providence evidently intended that the 
wakening up of the sleeping powers of nature — 
coal, steam, electricity and machinery — should roll 
back the curse on man at his fall, viz., "In the sweat 
of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return 
unto the ground."* It is God's intention that 
man should rise in the dignity of his image of God, 
and command not only the animate, but the inani- 
mate nature, by the word of his mouth, and it 
should obey him and do his service ; that man 
should work fewer hours and have more time for 
social, moral and intellectual improvement and 
development. The world should be made so that 
men could live in obedience to the high command : 
" Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, 
or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, 
what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than 
meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the 
fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly 
Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than 
they?" j These words were spoken in sharp con- 
trast with, and immediately following, the state- 
ment that " Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
It was not intended that the strength of a man's 
energies should be given to making enough to feed 
his stomach and clothe his body. "Is not the life 
more than meat and the body than raiment?" The 
development of men — socially, morally, mentally, 
physically and spiritually — is vastly higher and 

* Gen. iii.. 19. i Math, vi., 25, 26. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 155 

more the business of intelligent and immortal men 
than even this wonderful increase of material pros- 
perity. 

With all our improvements, developments, in- 
ventions and discoveries, it is harder for a young 
man with a limited capital to get started for an in- 
dependent life than it was ten years ago. It is 
harder for the small dealer, the little manufacturer 
and the farmer to keep on their feet than it was ten 
years ago, and the outlook is that it will continue 
to grow worse and worse. 

But untie these forces of nature from the hold of 
wealth, so they can flow out to the masses, and men 
need not work over half a day to have far more 
than they have now. When the demon of selfish- 
ness is cast out of men, they will stop when they 
have enough. They will work only part of the 
time, yet wear as many clothes as they do now, eat 
as much, and in general consume as much. This 
will leave room for all the men now idle to find 
employment ; and when employed, these men will 
get more clothes and buy more of everything, and 
the over-supply will thus be taken up. 

It is the greediness of the strong grasping the 
opportunities of the productive powers of nature 
from the weak, which compels the common people 
to strive and toil without rest, fearing the day will 
soon come when they too will be without work and 
the necessities of life. If the comforts of life were 
within easy reach of all, the possession of them 
would lose the character of being an evidence of 



I56 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

god-like power in him who held a superfluity of 
them. They would be more like air and water, and 
men would strive for no more than enough to 
supply their natural wants. There would not be 
that temptation to selfishness in the young, who are 
strong, to develop themselves into plutocrats, nor, 
on the other hand, would the weak be compelled to 
sink down in the struggle for life and become vag- 
abonds. Think calmly what hellish work it is for 
men to speculate merely for the sake of making 
themselves feel like little gods, in that which the 
great, kind Jehovah designed for the happiness of 
His people, and deface God's image which He has 
placed upon men. " A man's life consisteth not in 
the abundance of the things which he possesseth."* 
Men should be estimated by what they are, by what 
they do to make the world better and happier in the 
circle of influence opened before them, and not by 
their wealth ; but men never will be thus rightfully 
estimated while money is the reigning power of the 
land. 

As the light of Christianity opened up the great 
powers of nature, and God's people began to enjoy 
themselves in this age as men never did before, 
Satan organized his forces to grab and tie up these 
loosed powers of nature, by mighty and strong men 
in great estates and monopolies, with more hellish 
energy than he has ever exhibited since the days 
Jesus Christ was upon the earth. 

A man's greatest happiness in life is found when 

*Luke xii., 15. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 157 

employed and at work. The children play work 
because they love it, and grown people are children 
only with more years left behind them. The zest 
of gaining and holding property enlarges a man's 
nature and causes him to grow in the image of God. 
Life is good, and in the acquisition of property men 
live more. It is the tangible expression of their 
wills. When gained by honest service, economy 
and generous management, with all men it is the 
heritage which God has given man, and the empire 
of His dominion in the world. In the pleasure 
which clusters around these is the zest of life, and it 
stimulates the development of the nobler elements of 
true manhood. It unites families in little common- 
wealths, and shuts strong doors against discontent 
and family feuds. It is a band of strength uniting 
the husband and wife, and a cord to hold the chil- 
dren to the parents. It marks the lines of family 
ties, and in every way makes a man a better 
citizen. 

Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home. 
A pleasant home, a happy wife, will wean a man 
away from vice as no other earthly power can do. 
Men at their work are only runaways from women, 
and to the true man, his wife is the queen of the 
world, while the home which he has provided is 
her throne. To supply this revenue is the delight 
of his life ; and when in it, he feels, as nowhere else, 
the true power of the image God has placed in him, 
living and holding sway. 

Put before every man this hope of home and 



158 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

competency and independence in gaining a liveli- 
hood, and two generations will not pass till selfish- 
ness, improvidence and drunkenness will flee away. 
Poorhouses and almshouses will be a thing of the 
past. These will then be looked upon as things 
necessary for half-civilized people, but things which 
will not be needed when full civilization dawns 
upon the earth, which will come when the masses 
are freed from the oppression of the rich. 

The desire to own property is a strong instinct in 
man, and as man advances in civilization it 
strengthens and sweetens. Man does not need to 
be driven by necessity, as a quarry slave, to make 
him energetic and industrious. Give him the 
opportunity of developing the likeness of God 
which the Creator placed upon him in the begin- 
ning, and he will grow in all the noble virtues to 
the fullness of the stature of a man The love of 
ownership is in man from his superior creation over 
all the other animals of the world, The world 
looks more beautiful to us when we own a part of 
it, and have dominion over it. A town-lot, with 
nothing on it but sand, looks beautiful to even a 
young girl home from the seclusion of a female 
seminary, if the deed is in her name. 

Jesus kindly told us: "In my Father's house 
are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have 
told you. I go to prepare a place for you."* If He 
went to heaven to prepare a mansion for us, do you 
not think that He desires we should have comfort- 

* John xiv., 2. 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 159 

able, bright, happy and intelligent homes on earth? 
In fact, He takes it for granted we could not think 
otherwise, for He says if such remarkable phenom- 
ena had been that there were not mansions for us 
on high, He would have told us. From the charac- 
ter of all He said and did, we must infer that in 
heaven, where Satan no more can annoy, Jesus will 
have fitted up for us beautiful, bright homes in which 
to dwell forever. And He says if such a strange 
thing should be that it were not so, He would have 
told us. So we must also infer it is the design of 
the kind Creator that we should have, from the 
abundance of His providence in this world, bright, 
beautiful homes, and the ability to make them, so 
our families would grow up sweet, intelligent and 
noble in every virtue of manhood. If such were 
not so, He would have told us. 

Since " God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life,"* it 
would be very strange doctrine to teach that He 
was not also, in His wonderful love, interested be- 
yond finite comprehension in the happiness, com- 
forts and abundance for men on earth. 

" If the Son therefore shall make you free, you 
shall be free indeed. "f True freedom opens the field 
in the widest and fullest sense of equality in oppor- 
tunity to all men, and the accumulation of property 
is then a reward of merit for honest service, econ- 
omy and temperance. 

♦John iii., 16. f John viii., 36. 



l6o JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Absolute equality is not asked for, nor expected, 
nor is it necessary. But equality of privileges to 
life and the pursuit of happiness is what we demand 
and must have. The intelligent, the energetic, the 
provident and economical, should be rewarded above 
the lazy, the ignorant, the drunken and the spend- 
thrift. But these virtues cannot and must not give 
license for men to tie up the productive powers of 
nature, to the exclusion and suffering of the many. 
The man who does it should not be honored as the 
industrious and prudent are over the sluggards and 
the indolent. 

Where thrift becomes selfishness, economy miser- 
liness and prudence greed, it is time to call a halt. 
The commendations of the former in no way apply 
to the latter. The honor due those who practice 
the first is too often given to those who act under 
the second, and applied with greatly enlarged 
intensity. 

Men should be honored for the service which 
they render society, and condemned where their 
lives are evil against humanity. That man who 
ties up thousands and tens of thousands of dollars 
from the common weal of man, and then gives 
dimes away for charitable purposes, or, in other 
words, to alleviate some of the misery which his 
greed has caused, should not be called a philan- 
thropist. He owes humanity all he gives, and a 
great deal more. 

No man ever earned a million by the sweat of 
his face and in his service to his fellow-men. What 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. l6l 

a man gets by the sweat of his face he holds by- 
divine title ; but all he gets that is over this he has 
no right to, and he has somebody else's portion, 
and he must give it away to be right before God. 

Jesus let Peter keep his house, the centurion his 
home, the Syro-Phosnician woman her holdings, 
and it was probably in recognition of this law that 
He made the difference between these and the 
young ruler, whom He commanded to go, sell all 
that he had and give to the poor ; and the Holy 
Spirit prompted Zaccheus, when converted, to give 
away his holdings, and the rich man was described 
as being in hell because he had his good things on 
earth. 

By the increase of wealth in our country, larger 
and larger numbers of men are reduced to mere 
machines, as they work in our shops — tools in the 
hands of the bosses, and their wills enslaved 
more and more as the power of the plutocracy 
strengthens. 

If the poor live extravagantly and use up all they 
get, no matter how much, it is in imitation of their 
masters. If some of them spend their money for 
that which is not bread, we ask : Do they spend 
as much as the rich in that way? If some of the 
poor are lazy and will not work and want to have 
a living without work, are they not trying to be 
like the fellow who sits in the office and manages 
to gather in the hard earnings of those who do 
work, while he does not work for one-tenth or one- 
hundredth dollar which he gets? 



l62 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Under this pretended conservation of wealth by 
the rich for the poor, there is nothing but hard 
work and a mere living for the poor man, the 
farmer and the mechanic, in this land of plenty, 
and a place to do that is often denied him. The 
poor man goes home after a hard day's work, or 
after having hunted fruitlessly for work but finding 
none, his heart feeling like a stone in his bowels. 
The wife, half-clad, half-starved, in a half-lighted 
house, cold and uncomfortable, is out of heart, and 
consequently uncongenial. The man finds no en- 
joyment in home life, seeks the saloon for rest from 
his misery and in search of comfort. At the saloon 
he spends what little money he has, and goes home 
drunk. Things thereby are made worse, rather 
than better. Drinking becomes a habit and the 
saloon a frequent resort. The good nature of the 
kind wife breaks down, and her discontent turns 
into anger. Cold chills her, and starvation stares 
her in the face. Desperation takes hold of her 
soul, as she sees him who should provide for her 
and theirs not half doing it, and then giving the 
greater part of that little to the saloon-keeper, 
while leaving her to breast the cold winds of pov- 
erty alone. Her part as a wife is not performed, 
and her desire to her husband is no longer with 
her. From want of conjugal love and coldness of 
feelings, bad temper arises and quarrels ensue, 
angry blows and unfaithfulness on the part of the 
husband — divorce follows. The end is, the wife 
and daughters are driven into prostitution, and the 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP. 163 

husband's homes are saloons and houses of ill- 
fame. As we look at the history, we say there 
were faults on both sides ; but the great primeval 
cause of all the trouble was and is the condition of 
business caused by the so-called conservation of 
wealth by the rich. 

Had there been placed before these people a hope 
of gaining respectability, living comfortably, a nice 
home, and ability to provide for themselves a com- 
petency to take care of them and shelter them in 
old age — in fine, the dignity of being a free man, 
working for himself, and no longer an employe, 
the sweet thought shining before them of sitting 
under their own vine and fig tree, with no crushing 
and enlarging mortgage making them afraid, they 
would have fought the battles of life side by side 
with a heart for any fate, till, in old age and full of 
years, they would have gone down to their graves 
like a shock of corn in its season, leaving good ex- 
amples behind them in the memories of those who 
knew them and should live after them. I do not 
say that this would be the history of every one, but 
I do say that this would be the history of many a 
wrecked family, as things are now, and would be 
the development and tendency if the productive 
powers of nature were freed and let go to the 
masses. 

Frances E. Willard says : " Twenty-one years of 
study and observation have convinced me that pov- 
erty is the prime cause of intemperance, and that 
misery is the mother, and hereditary appetite the 



164 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

father, of the drink hallucination. For this reason 
I am an avowed advocate of such a change in social 
conditions as shall stamp out the disease and con- 
tagion of poverty, even as medical science is stamp- 
ing out leprosy, small pox and cholera." 

No picture at the World's Fair, in Chicago, at- 
tracted more attention than the foreclosing of the 
mortgage on a farm. The artist, true to life, from 
divine sympathy, had embodied and traced all the 
lines of sorrow and sadness of a crushed heart, 
where the fires of hope had gone out in the hus- 
band and father's face. 

That one to whom the hard lot falls of having 
taken away an opportunity of making life comforta- 
ble and abundant, and who can rise above the distress 
of circumstances and live nobly and smile while for- 
tune frowns, is made out of stuff which is more 
than ordinary humanity. The large army of girls 
and women who are thrown out of their ordained 
sphere in life, but are heroically stemming the cur- 
rent of affairs, receiving only half the pay for the 
same work that their stronger brothers get, suffer- 
ing their double curse from being physically 
weaker, are they who will come up out of much 
tribulation, with their garments washed in the 
blood of the Lamb, and of which there shall be an 
innumerable army of white-robed saints surround- 
ing the throne of God. That one who is robbed in 
this world of making the most out of life, loses and 
suffers only second to him who fails of reaching 
heaven. If he does not become a broken-hearted 



THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP 165 

man, and lie down on the race course of life, ready 
for temptation to crime or anything bad, he is truly 
a high-minded, noble man. He who destroys and 
takes away the opportunities from people in this 
life by his superior strength and position, is like to 
him who destroys both body and soul in hell. 



CHAPTER XL 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 

p^HE Scriptures say, " Abraham was very rich 
in cattle, in silver, and in gold."* And 
because Abraham was rich, some men infer that it is 
right for any man to be rich, providing he gets the 
money without violating any statutory or common 
law. 

Abraham had servants, and this was looked upon 
as an invincible argument for the divine approval 
of slavery in anti-bellum times. Abraham told a 
falsehood, and there are a few cases where this has 
been used as a balm for the consciences of cieceitful 
men. Abraham had his concubine, Hagar, and this 
is held by some as a justification of polygamy and 
concubinage. Abraham turned out his concubine 
and his illegitimate child on the desert without 
sustenance and support. They would have per- 
ished had not God vouchsafed a special providence 
in their behalf. We have not, however, learned of 
any who infer from this transaction that it was the 
proper thing to do, or that a righteous and religious 
man can consistently turn out his illegitimate child 

*Gen. xiii., 2. 

166 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 167 

and its mother to starve and die, because Abraham 
did. 

We must take into consideration that Abraham 
lived in the starlight age of God's revelation to 
men, that Abraham was not perfect and that God 
winked at sins then which He commands men 
now to repent of and never commit. Whatever 
Abraham's shortcomings may have been, he towered 
far above all the men of his time, in the nobleness 
and greatness of his character, and remains till this 
day as the father of the faithful, and truly the most 
faithful man. But we must not give wholesale 
license for men to sin along the line of Abraham's 
defects and shortcomings, or of any other man's. 
Abraham was not perfect, and everything he did 
was not right, because he, being a good man, did it. 
God established in Abraham the patriarchal form 
of government, and Abraham was not only a father 
to his children, but to those who were called servants. 
In a word, he was as a father to all his little nation 
or body politic. He and his people were the 
embryotic Jewish nation. It is true, Abraham was 
rich, but he used his riches not to feed his greed, 
nor to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and to 
fare sumptuously every day ; his holdings and riches 
were for the purpose of serving others and making 
his little nation happy in the abundance of the land, 
and to deal generously with those outside with 
whom he came in contact. 

By reading the story of his life, we find that gen- 
erosity, great-heartedness, magnanimity and broth- 



l68 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

erly love to all men were the characteristic features 
of his life. This is shown in his treatment of Lot, 
his nephew. He had brought Lot with him from 
his native land to Canaan, and Lot was under at 
least some obligations to him. When there arose a 
strife between Lot's herdmen and Abraham's 
herdmen, •' Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no 
strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and 
between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be 
brethren. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I 
will go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right 
hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up 
his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it 
was well watered everywhere. Then Lot chose 
him all the plain of Jordan. But the men of 
Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord 
exceedingly. And Abraham dwelt in the land of 
Canaan."* Lot's worldly wisdom, or, in other 
words, selfishness, forms a dark background for the 
bright, heavenly light of the generosity which 
shines out in Abraham's proposition to Lot, and 
his magnanimity in letting Lot have the rich fields 
of the Jordan, while he took the dry and compara- 
tively barren mountains of Canaan. The grand, 
noble conduct seemed to move the feelings of the 
Almighty with special love toward Abraham. At 
first sight, we might think it was pity, but on closer 
examination it is seen to be admiration and confi- 
dence. " And the Lord said unto Abraham, after 
that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine 

*Gen. xiii., 8-13. 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 169 

eyes, and look from the place where thou art, north- 
ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward : 
for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give 
it, and to thy seed forever. Arise, walk through 
the land in the length of it and in the breadth of 
it; for I will give it unto thee."* In Abraham, 
God found a man who had a principle which could 
not be weighed out against money, and that princi- 
ple was love for his fellow-men. This principle 
was the exact opposite which lost us Eden. It 
was a man rising above the power of Satan's 
selfishness, and loving his neighbor as he loved him- 
self. God then and there gave Abraham the land 
of Palestine, not to lord it with, nor to live luxuri- 
ously, but to set up a government under his rule, 
and that he might make a nation from his loins 
which would establish the kingdom of heaven on 
earth, though it largely failed, and which the son 
of Abraham, Jesus Christ, two thousand years 
after set up on earth ; and His stately steppings 
seem now to be that He is about to bring it into the 
fullness of its fruition. 

When Lot's exceeding sinners in Sodom, down 
on the plains of the Jordan, gave him trouble, and 
stole his goods and carried him away captive, Abra- 
ham, true to his large-heartedness, " armed his 
trained servants, three hundred and eighteen, and 
pursued them unto Dan. And he brought back all 
the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, 
and his goods, and the women also, and the 

*Gen. xiii., 14, 15, 17. 



170 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

people." * And the king of Sodom went out to 
meet him after his return, " And the king of 
Sodom said unto Abraham, Give me the persons, 
and take the goods to thyself. And Abraham said 
to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up mine hand 
unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of 
heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread 
even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take any- 
thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have 
made Abraham rich : save only that which the 
young men have eaten, and the portion of the men 
which went with me, Aner, Eshcol and Mamre ; 
let them take their portion." j- 

We need not be surprised that such a hero for 
brotherly love in such a selfish world should move 
the anxious love and care of God, who, like a father 
pitieth his children, pitieth them that trust Him, 
spoke to Abraham in a vision, with all the appar- 
ent solicitude of a mother to her son amid dangers, 
" Saying, Fear not, Abram : I am thy shield, and 
thy exceeding great reward." J Oh, Abraham! 
let not thy noble heart fail thee, as it did thy first 
parents in the garden of Eden two thousand years 
before. 

When the strangers came to Abraham, at the 
plains of Mamre, in the heat of the day, as he sat 
at the door of his tent, we see in the entertain- 
ment of them the same simplicity of unselfish 
affection, the unity and absolute brotherhood of 
the entire human family as it lay in Abraham's 

* Gen. xiv., 14, 16. f Gen. xiv , 21-24. ± Gen. xv., 1. 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 171 

mind and heart. His reception of them was with 
the simplicity and unselfish affection of a child. 
See him hastening to Sarah, his wife, saying to her : 
" Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, 
knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And 
Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf 
tender and good, and gave it unto a young man ; 
and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and 
milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it 
before them ; and he stood by them under the tree, 
and they did eat." * The story is one which 
brings before us a picture of common life, a com- 
mon man with the habits and simplicity of the 
plain and honest farmer of to-day. His wife pre- 
paring the meal, his waiting and attending to their 
needs as they ate, are not the ways of those who 
wear soft clothing and live in king's houses. Paul 
exhorts the Hebrews, Abraham's children, two 
thousand years afterwards, referring to this inci- 
dent, saying : " Let brotherly love continue. Be 
not forgetful to entertain strangers : for thereby 
some have entertained angels unawares." -f 

Again, Abraham's pleading for the safety of his 
nephew and all his and the city in which he lived, 
reminds us of the story of the centurion coming to 
Christ, pleading for the recovery of his sick serv- 
ant, and of whom Jesus said, " I have not found 
so great faith, no, not in all Israel." And it must 
have made the same impression on Jesus' mind, for 
He said of this man : I say unto you, that many 

* Gen. xviii., 6-8. f Heb. xiii., 1, 2. 



172 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit 
down with Abraham in the kingdom of heaven. 
But the sons of the kingdom, the sons of Abraham 
by blood, and so sons of his kingdom, shall be cast 
out into darkness ; there shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth, from their selfish, grasping, 
greedy ways. Jesus plainly told the wealthy Sad- 
ducees and Pharisees that they were not the chil- 
dren of Abraham in the great relationship of the 
brotherhood of men, but that they were the chil- 
dren of the devil, and the deeds of their father the 
devil they did. 

Abraham was the father of the faithful, but if 
the greatest achievement of his faith was his getting 
up out of the land Ur of the Chaldees and going 
into a country not knowing whither he went, then 
he is little more than a Columbus, or the early emi- 
grants to California in search of gold, and no more 
than our Pilgrim fathers, who left the shores of 
England for conscience' sake and risked the cold 
rocks and trackless woods of New England's unpro- 
pitious shores. If the greatest exhibition of his 
faith was that he took Isaac, his son, at God's com- 
mand, and offered up his only begotten son as a 
sacrifice to the great Jehovah, then he is only above 
many of the men of his day in that he intelligently 
obeyed the command of the true Jehovah, while his 
fellows were as obedient as he, but theirs were 
imaginary and heathen deities. Farther than Abra- 
ham's great unselfish love for others, we see that his 
love for his son was more than ordinary men's, and 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 173 

then in his son was also the hope of the great promise 
of the Jehovah, all of which strengthens our view 
of his great faith. This gave the Jehovah the oppor- 
tunity of teaching the world that though it was in 
the reach of the faith of a father, and even one so 
intelligent as Abraham, to surrender his only child 
at the command of the God of heaven, it was not 
in the will of the true Jehovah that any man should 
give his child as a sacrifice to the gods, and for- 
ever set His seal of condemnation against the offer- 
ing of human beings as sacrifices. 

Seeing Abraham in these, and adding that he had 
all the opportunities any man ever had to amass 
wealth and pile up a fortune, but from the love he 
had for his fellow-men he would not do it, and 
when God heaped upon him the treasures of the 
storehouse of nature in her largest abundance, he 
would not use them for himself, but for the use of 
others, we get hold of his great, grand, broad love 
for men, and a faith which entitles him to be called 
the " Father of the faithful." 

No man ever had greater opportunities to have 
oppressed the poor and to have rolled in wealth and 
to have fared sumptuously every day than Abra- 
ham, but he would not do it. He resisted the greed 
of avarice and the pride of wealth, and lived as a 
common man, using the great powers given him to 
make mankind happy and to have abundance. 
Abraham was the early example among men of 
the heavenly truth: "Whosoever will be chief 



174 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

among you, let him be your servant."* Abraham, 
it is true, was very rich, but Jesus Christ was far 
richer. And, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, 
" though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became 
poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."f 
Instead of Abraham being profited by the men who 
were called his servants, they were profited by him, 
and he was the servant of his servants, which is the 
clear color of his entire life and doings. None equaled 
him then, none have excelled him since, in his large 
brotherly love, a type of " Jesus, who went about 
doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of 
the devil ; for God was with him. "J Where large 
businesses have to be managed under one mind, it 
is Jesus' plan that the man who stands at the head 
shall manage the business for all directly connected 
with it and for all whom it may in any way affect, 
with generosity and a regard for their interests. 

The voice of the great patriarch since he has 
gone to the world beyond, has been heard once 
from heaven by the lips of the Saviour. It was to 
his lost descendant in hell, explaining to him how 
it came that he was there. This explanation was 
and is : " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime 
receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus 
evil things : but now he is comforted and thou art 
tormented, "§ which is a plain-cut statement that it 
was his selfish way of using and having his wealth 
that cost him his soul. 

Job is quoted as a rich man, in defence of the 

*Math. xx., 27. f 2 Cor. viii., 9. JActs x., 38. §Luke xvi., 25 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 175 

large accumulations of wealth around us. Certainly 
nothing could be more unfair than for a religious 
man to cast this odium upon Job. It was bad 
enough when Job was living and had the chance to 
reply. When Zophar the Naamathite intimated 
to Job that he was a rich man, it stirred him up 
more than the loss of his property, the boils from 
the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, or 
anything else that his troublesome friends said to 
him. And he returned to Zophar such an answer 
that Zophar said no more, and it would be sup- 
posed no one who had any respect for the memory 
of Job and his patience would repeat the insult. 

"But Job answered and said, Suffer me that I 
may speak ; and after that I have spoken, mock on. 
Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are 
mighty in power? They spend their days in 
wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. 
Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us ; for 
we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What 
is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And 
what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?"* 
" Some remove the landmarks ; they violently take 
away flocks, and feed thereof. They drive away 
the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox 
for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way ; 
the poor of the earth hide themselves together. 
They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, 
that they have no covering in the cold. They 
pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a 

* Job xxi., 1, 3, 7, 13, 14, 15. 



176 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked 
without clothing, and take away the sheaf from the 
hungry."* 

"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; 
and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me : 
because I delivered the poor that cried, and the 
fatherless, and him that had none to help him. 
The blessing of him that was ready to perish came 
upon me : and I caused the widow's heart to sing 
for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed 
me : my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I 
was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. 
I was a father to the poor : and the cause which I 
knew not I searched out. And I brake the jaws 
of the wicked, and plucked the spoils out of his 
teeth." f " Did not I weep for him that was in 
trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?" J 
" If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or 
have caused the eyes of the widow to fail ; or have 
eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless 
hath not eaten thereof ; if I have seen any perish 
for want of clothing, or any poor without cover- 
ing ; if his loins have not blessed me, and if he 
were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep ; if I 
have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when 
I saw my help in the gate : then let mine arm fall 
from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken 
from the bone. If I have made gold my hope, or 
have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence ; 
if I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, 

* Job xxiv., 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10. f Job xxix., 11-17. JJobxxx.,25. 



AERAHAM AND JOB. Iff 

and because mine hand had gotten much ; this also 
were an iniquity to be punished by the judge : for 
I should have denied the God that is above." * 

Words cannot be written in more severe 
condemnation of rich men than these. Job 
resented in sharpest words, and at length, the 
implication by Zophar that he was in any way 
like wealthy men in his life and ways. Job was a 
patriarch like Abraham, and his great holdings 
were for the good and benefit of those who in any 
way touched him in life. Instead of tying up the 
opportunities from the masses, he loosed the pro- 
ductive powers of nature, and caused them to flow 
out to the masses, to give them abundance and make 
their lives happier. Look again at his words, as 
he says, The wicked spend their days in wealth, and 
say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the 
knowledge of thy ways. God's ways and the men 
who spend their days in wealth never can agree. 
Job charges upon the wealthy that they cause the 
poor to lodge without clothing, that great riches is 
the reason they have no covering from the cold, and 
that the rich take away the sheaf from the hungry. 
He brings as a charge against the wealthy that 
they take a pledge from the poor, thus denying 
them the right of security for their loans when 
dealing with them, as is taught in the parable of 
the unjust steward, by our Lord and Master. 
Job's words here are the morning star of the 

* Job xxxi., 16, 17, 10, 22, 24, 25, 28. 



178 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

petition in our Lord's Prayer — Forgive us our 
debts as we forgive our debtors. 

Instead of his life being the life of a wealthy 
man, he looked upon his great holdings as only for 
him to see to it that nobody lacked any good thing, 
and this was to be determined not by his will, 
but by the will and opinion of the* poor. If he 
had withheld from the poor any of their desires or 
had ever enjoyed a pleasure they had not shared, or 
eaten alone, he was to be condemned. As long as 
he had these great holdings, he recognized the fact 
that there was not a poor and needy man in the 
world that he was not debtor to, and that it was his 
business to hunt up, search out and provide for them ; 
and if he had failed to do so, he said to let his arm 
fall from his shoulder blade. It could not be said 
of Job when he came before the great judgment 
bar of God, that he had not fed the hungry, clothed 
the naked, visited the sick in prison, and ministered 
to the poor, for there was not even the least of these 
Christ's brethren he had not hunted up and pro- 
vided for. Compared with Job's providing for the 
poor, how weak are the greatest gifts of those men 
whom the world now calls philanthropists. If 
the theory be true that Job operated the rolling 
mills and blast furnaces from which the slag came 
that now lies at the foot of Mount Sinai, then Job 
lived in times with demands commensurate with 
those of men of large means of the present day, 
and had the same difficulties to meet and overcome. 
But his management was all that men could wish, 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. 179 

and must have been all that they did desire, for 
his challenge was that he had not held from any of 
the poor their desire. There were no strikes under 
Job, and would be none now if the poor were not 
oppressed. 

This is probably the reason Satan had a grudge 
against him. His life brought out the selfishness of 
the wealthy and showed the enormity of their op- 
pressions and wrongs against the poor. The poor, 
in Job, had a pattern of what all strong men ought 
to be. For his generosity, God had made him more 
prosperous than any other man of his time ; and 
this was done by God, not that Job might have the 
haughty sense of wealth, but that he might feed and 
clothe the needy poor. Job was true to his mis- 
sion, and wealthy men, as far as his fame was 
known, were troubled and rebuked by him in their 
wronging and robbery of the poor. The selfish 
devil himself could stand it no longer, and went to 
God. The Lord knew his desire when He met 
him, and said to Satan: "Hast thou considered 
my servant Job, that there is none like him in the 
earth ; a perfect and an upright man, one that fear- 
eth God and escheweth evil? "* Satan gave the 
question a square denial in his answer, saying : 
" Doth Job fear* God for nought? Hast not thou 
made a hedge about him, and about his house, and 
about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast 
blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is 
increased in the land; but put forth thine hand 
*Job i., 8. 



iSo JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse 
thee to thy face."* The devil looked upon Job's 
giving as the gifts of the Pharisee or monopolist, 
to be seen of men, as in some great gifts where the 
newspapers will get hold of it and blow the trumpet 
from one end of the land to the other. So he 
thought Job had made his gifts to be seen of God, 
and keep on the kind side of God, who was so 
lavishly pouring the good things from the horn of 
plenty into the lap of his fortune. To Satan there 
was, in all Job did, no generosity, no recognition 
of the brotherhood of men and the fatherhood of 
God, making each man his brother's keeper, and 
which principle had been denied by the wicked as 
early as Cain. Satan's ideas were the common senti- 
ment of the polite society. Job was a keen, deep 
planner in their eyes, even outwitting the Almighty 
and making money faster than any of them, mak- 
ing the poor happy with his money, and the wrath 
of the polite sentiment was decidedly against him. 
The Lord had in Job what He called a perfect 
man — a man dominated by the right spirit, a man 
whose motives were upright and movements were 
in brotherly love. Job did not serve God and treat 
the poor right for profit and gain, but it was his 
love to man that prompted him to it. It was not 
that either God or men might see his acts, nor that 
he might have the approval of either in the more 
rapid accumulation of wealth. His deeds were 
unselfish, welling up out of a heart with love for 
*Jobi., 9, 10. 



ABRAHAM AND JOB. l8l 

all men and pity for those in need, which moved 
the principle in him to action, that what he had 
was not his own, but for the use and good of all 
men. 

So the Lord said to Satan : " Behold, all that 
he hath is in thy power ; only upon himself put not 
forth thine hand."* And Satan went to the work 
of destroying his property. " In all this Job sinned 
not, nor charged God foolishly." j- 

Satan, foiled here, went to the Lord again, and 
Jehovah, triumphing in His hero Job, said to Satan : 
" Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there 
is none like him in the earth ; a perfect and an up- 
right man, one that feareth God, and escheweth 
evil? And still he holdeth fast his integrity, 
although thou movedst me against him, to destroy 
him without cause. "J We must pause to note how 
differently the words upright man and integrity are 
used here from the general use of the words, where 
it means little more than living in accordance with 
the statutory and common laws and the dicta of 
society ; in fine, the opinions of men. Here it 
means all that is in that wide, brotherly love taught 
by Jesus Christ. Satan had thousands who were 
upright men, of high integrity, philanthropists and 
benevolent in the eyes of men ; and of all men most 
enraged against Job, these sleek hypocrites were 
the worst. 

Satan's answer shows he was greatly in earnest 
when he said : " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man 

*Job i., 12. fjob i., 22. JJob ii., 3. 



182 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine 
hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he 
will curse thee to thy face."* "And the Lord said 
unto Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand ; but save his 
life." j Then Satan went out to try and torment 
Job, and the greatest battle of temptation that ever 
was fought between mere man and the devil was 
fought, and through it all Job maintained his in- 
tegrity and sinned not with his lips. Another 
bright star rose to shine in the world to light men 
on in their way to perfection and brotherly love. 

When Job's temptations were past and his vic- 
tory won, God opened the storehouses of nature to 
him, "so the Lord blessed the latter end of Job 
more than his beginning." J Thus God early 
taught the world that when men obey and follow 
His commands, deal with all men as their brethren, 
doing unto all as they would have others do unto 
them, nature will yield up her stores as in no other 
way. 

*Job ii., 4, 5. f Job ii., 6. $ Job xlii., 12, 



CHAPTER XII, 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 

T THE close of the war, and shortly before 

1(&§L the tragical death of Abraham Lincoln, 
" Honest Old Abe," unselfish Lincoln uttered the 
most remarkable prophecy since the days of John 
the Revelator. He said : " I see in the near future 
a crisis arising that unnerves me, and causes me to 
tremble for the safety of my country. As a result 
of the war, corporations have been enthroned, an 
era of corruption in high places will follow, and the 
money power of the country will endeavor to pro- 
long its reign by working upon the prejudices of 
the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few 
hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel more 
anxiety for my country than ever before, even in 
the midst of the war." 

This prophecy is already approaching fulfillment, 
and its dark shadow covers our entire land. On an 
average, the laboring man receives about one dollar 
per day for his honest toil, while the capitalist from 
his large holdings receives, it is fair to say, three 
hundred dollars a day. The entire increase of 
wealth in this country is going into the hands of 
capitalists. A few thousand men out of nearly 

183 



184 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

seventy millions hold over half the wealth of our 
land, and while their number is becoming smaller, 
their possessions are rapidly growing larger. The 
wealth is passing away from the common people, 
and their numbers are steadily increasing. Joseph 
Cook says: "If the causes which produce con- 
centration of wealth continue, the Republic will 
soon be owned by less than fifty thousand people." 
There are fifty men now in this country who have 
the power to stop the wheels of industry in twenty- 
four hours throughout the entire land. In taxing 
the people by the manipulation of prices, we have 
a few great plutocrats doing that which neither 
Congress nor state legislatures would dare attempt 
— powers which, if exerted in Great Britain, would 
shake the throne to its foundation, and no political 
ruler on Continental Europe dare essay. 

All this enormous concentration of wealth and 
usurpation of power is the work of less than a 
third of a century. Our two greatest pluto- 
crats each receive annually from $7,000,000 to 
$8,000,000 ; or from one hundred and forty to one 
hundred and sixty times the salary we pay the 
President of the United States. Queen Victoria 
receives $300,000, or only one-twenty-seventh of this 
amount. The entire royalty of England costs that 
nation $2,834,000, or something over one-third as 
much as either one of these two men take out of 
the life-blood of this Nation. In other words, two 
men cost us more than five times as much as it 
would have cost this Nation had the Revolutionary 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 1 85 

War never been fought, and England had loaded 
onto these colonies the entire expense of all her 
royalty. This, however, is but a speck compared 
with the aggregate amount which is absorbed by 
the millionaires of our land. Is it any wonder that 
while we are in the midst of abundance, we are 
also in the midst of hard times ; with debts increas- 
ing while there is no war, nor even remarkable 
enlargement of public improvements. 

The far-seeing Lord Thomas Babington Ma- 
caulay, of England, said of this country some 
years ago : " As for America, I appeal to the 
twentieth century ; either some Csesar or Napoleon 
will seize the reins of government with a strong 
hand, or your Republic will be as fearfully plun- 
dered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth 
century, as the Roman empire was in the fifth ; 
with this difference, that the Huns and the Vandals 
who ravished Rome came from without her borders, 
while your Huns and Vandals will be engendered 
within your own country and by your own institu- 
tions." Macaulay, as Lincoln, saw in the devel- 
opment of the embryotic forces of our free institu- 
tions, in our large and productive country, that 
which would lead to the present condition of affairs, 
and in the end, by the ripening and maturing of 
selfish plans, would be productive of curses never 
felt by the human race, in the threatening reign of 
plutocracy. 

Twenty-five years ago our Nation was ruled with 
men chosen by the people, and when the people 



l86 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

thought these men did not represent them and their 
interests, they let them stay at home. But now, 
many of our United States senators get their 
places by their wealth, and are holding them by 
means of their wealth, while some speculate, by 
the opportunity their position gives them, out of the 
necessities, the rights and freedom of the people 
whose interests they pretend to represent. Wall 
street and the Bank of England in many of our 
important National moves dictate now what shall be 
done. We have senators who are directed in their 
movements more by their holdings in England and 
Wall street than by the interests of the people they 
pretend to serve. This state of affairs has been 
rapidly increasing in the last few years, and the two 
great money centers, Wall street and the Bank of 
England, are growing into one, and their power 
over the Nation for weal or woe increases every 
year. 

These wealthy men who rule our Nation were not 
appointed by the people, neither can the people bid 
them retire when their interests are not served. 
They are self-appointed, self-assumed emperors, or 
rather, dictators and tyrants, independent of the 
will of the people. All this power has grown up 
in less than a third of a century. In this condition 
the maxim most fitly applies, "For whosoever hath 
to him shall be given, and he shall have more abun- 
dance ; but whosoever hath not. from him shall be 
taken away even that he hath."* Much easily 

*Math. xiii., 12. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. I 87 

gains more. The strength already won by wealth 
is more than half the battle to own the entire Re- 
public, and it need take less years between this and 
the final victory than it has taken to travel thus far. 

We are living under the stars and stripes, and 
proudly call ourselves a free people. But what is 
freedom, and what is a free people? Our Declara- 
tion of Independence says : " We hold these truths 
to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by the Creator with certain 
inalienable rights ; that among these are life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness." Is this true of 
our country to-day? Does not one man practically 
own and control one of our largest products, 
namely, the oil? Oil is not free to the people of 
this Nation for the pursuit of happiness. One man 
reigns over it and holds it in his grasp as an abso- 
lute dictator, with empire that no political despot 
ever dared to exceed. Who made him an overseer 
over this part of God's heritage? God never did. 
God put the oil in the ground for His children, and 
not to build up the great Standard oil. The people 
of the United States never gave it to him. He took 
it. He assumed the control, and holds it with the 
permission of neither God nor man. 

The meat trade is fast going into the hands of 
one or two men. A line of railroads stretches from 
ocean to ocean that is under one control. Another 
similar combination south of it is not only possible, 
but probable. These two combines formed, and the 
absorbing of all the other lines of railroads in the 



l88 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

United States would be a natural result, rather 
than a difficult task. These two, having the field, 
would not compete, but combine, and the man who 
would stand at the head of this great combination 
could defy the powers at Washington and all the 
state capitals. He could build up one town and 
tear down another. Congressmen and statesmen 
would be compelled to bow to him, or he could, and 
probably would, make it very unpleasant for them 
and shear them of their power. Nearly all we 
have either comes or goes on wheels, and he who 
dictates the commerce of our Nation dictates how 
we shall live, by saying what it shall cost us. 
Alarming as this may seem, it is a condition of 
things which may be here inside of five years. 

Again, let one management own the meat trade, 
and he who manages that will dictate what the 
farmer shall receive for his sheep, his hogs and his 
cattle. If there is no competition, anyone knows 
the price paid will be merely large enough to allow 
the farmer to live over, so as to raise more stock 
for the plutocrat to speculate on next year and add 
to his already too many millions. In fact, the meat 
market is almost now ruled by two men, and see 
where the price of stock has gone and where it is 
going. 

In the same way, men are at liberty to form mo- 
nopolies on the wheat, corn, coal, lead, iron, silver, 
gold, and every great industry in our land. They 
are already trying it, and the outlook is that their 
attempts will be successful. Over four hundred 



THE PLUTOCRACY. ISO, 

combines and trusts are reported in our country. 
Many of them are in their infancy, but when 
these have succeeded, there will be nothing left out 
that is worth having, and the small dealer will be a 
thing of history. 

There is nothing easier than for two great 
combines to unite and make one great combina- 
tion. Consolidation, combination, is one of the 
staple items of our daily newspapers. Lines of 
business are crystallizing into large and larger com- 
binations, and every year it is becoming harder and 
harder for the small tradesman to stand. A certain 
amount of capital, with which a man could keep on 
his feet in the swift running stream of business last 
year, is too small to stem the rising current this 
year. And so on, every year it is becoming harder 
for the small dealer to make anything, and for the 
man with limited means to get a start. The small 
dealer will go down first, then the larger dealer 
will go, and so on till all wealth centers in one 
head. The weaker will be slain by the hands of 
the stronger — till one management holds the situa- 
tion. Everything is rapidly moving towards a few 
centers, and the farther it goes, the greater the 
progress will be from the nature of augmented 
strength gathering speed and size, the simplicity 
of the business gravitating into fewer hands. 

The world is practically one to-day, as it was 
at the building of the tower of Babel, or as 
it was under one control when Jesus Christ 
came. We are knit together by telegraphs, rail- 



I90 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

roads, the daily press and travel, so that we know- 
sooner about our neighbors in China, Japan, Paris, 
London, Berlin and all the cities of the United 
States, than our grandfathers did about the township 
in which they lived. We read and talk at our 
breakfast tables of what happened in all parts of 
the world the day before. The prices of other na- 
tions yesterday determine our prices to-day. The 
world is moving as a unit, and its financial 
interests hang one upon another. National polit- 
ical boundary lines are breaking down ; trade, com- 
merce and travel make us one. 

It is impossible for the world to be again con- 
quered by a Caesar, an Alexander or a Napoleon, 
with the sword. The great nations of the west- 
ern hemisphere have made this an impossibility. 
The great oceans separating us from them puts a 
quietus on the ambition of men to conquer the 
world by force of arms, for it is out of the question. 
But the old ambition is still alive, active, and as full 
of determination as ever, only in another form, and 
even more tyrannical, more selfish, and by far more 
hellish and difficult to oppose. The power of the 
divine right of kings can only be extended where 
the monarch can land his armieo, but the money 
power, by virtue of the right of title, can extend 
her empire regardless of oceans, different conti- 
nents, gunboats, standing armies or fortifications. 
Right of title is cosmopolitan. It reigns the same 
in all climates, zones, races or tongues, regardless of 
the domicile of him who holds the scepter. A man 



THE PLUTOCRACY. I9I 

in London, with the deeds of an American railroad 
in his safe and name, controls that road as much as 
if he lived in the United States. No matter how 
much the interests and fate of our freedom are in- 
volved in the management of that road, his control 
is just the same. European capital owns enough 
land in the United States to make a tract as large 
as New England, with the exception of Maine. 
English capitalists own enough of our securities to 
dictate the movement, in no small degree, of our 
finances. The demonetization of silver was at her 
behest, and no monometalist is foolish enough to 
say it was in the general interests of the common 
people, but rather in fear of her threats. If the 
play of this movement means in the end to buy up 
all the silver mines of the world by a great combine, 
then it is a strategic movement of far-seeing sagac- 
ity and of enormous development. This done, the 
money power would immediately raise the cry for 
the remonetization of silver. With one-half 
of the money of the world under the control of 
one management, it would be easy to corner the 
other half and, with the blood of the Nation on their 
hands, they would have the life of the Nation and 
the world also. 

There are only two powers in the world which 
are in position to conquer the world, and these two 
are actively engaged in the field — money, wealth 
and mammon on the one hand, with God, Jesus 
Christ and good-will to all men on the other. The 
success of the one is the overthrow of the other. 



I92 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

For one to conquer means defeat to the other. It 
is true that the moneyed powers, as in the days of 
Christ, are willing to march under the banners of 
religion, if their success is thereby greater and more 
speedily advanced ; but it means in the end that the 
spoils will be theirs, and it is only the deceitfulness 
of Satan, in that he is willing to assume any garb 
to gain his end. It was the breaking away from the 
grasp and formality of the moneyed power that has 
been the underlying principle of every reformation 
of Christianity in the world. The cleanest-cut 
battle ever fought between right and wrong, 
squarely confronting each other, is before us, and 
to meet it seems to be the task assigned this genera- 
tion. It is brotherly love, peace, good-will to all 
men, prosperity to the masses, the elevation of the 
human race, general intelligence, charity, Jesus 
Christ and God arrayed against selfishness, oppres- 
sion, wealth, money in the hands of the few, de- 
gradation to the masses, crimes of all kind, wicked- 
ness, mammon or the devil. " Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon, for either ye will hate the one, and 
love the other ; or else ye will hold to the one and 
despise the other."* 

Our century has been marked with a rising fea- 
ture which has become universal in the last quarter ; 
that is, the time has fully come when the soldiers 
of Christ must arm themselves and march forward 
and take the world for their Leader. They have 
their pickets out in every nation under heaven, with 

*Math. vi., 24. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 



93 



confident expectation that not many decades will 
pass till the world is given to God and His 
Christ. The fact is fully demonstrated by practi- 
cal experience that the gospel of Jesus Christ and 
the Bible is fitted and adapted for all generations, 
for every nation and every clime, whether " Par- 
thians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers 
in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in 
Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in 
Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, 
and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes 
and Arabians."* The establishment of the Church 
at the Pentecost was the type of the destiny of the 
Church of Jesus Christ, and pointed out that its 
field was the entire world. 

Both right of title and Christianity are the same 
the world over. The forces are universal, alike, 
at home and adapted to reign in any nation, or hold 
the world under their sway. There is more avowed 
and announced determination on the part of 
Christ's followers ; but the moneyed power is 
equally as hard at work and is making rapid 
progress. 

There is nothing this side of eternal woe that 
men need fear more than the threatening, approach- 
ing plutocracy. There is nothing which so effect- 
ually petrifies and damns all virtue out of the human 
heart as amassing wealth rapidly. The saloon- 
keeper knows he is a sinner, and the drunkard, 
with few exceptions, is ashamed of his drinking. 

*Acts ii , 9, 10, 11. 



194 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

But the corporation robber, stock thief, plutocrat, 
oppressing the poor, is proud of his success in 
money-getting, and his vanity is enlarged. If he 
is a member of the Church, it is not improbable 
that the minister, in his innocence, will hold him up 
as an example for young men, to show them how a 
Christian man, who joined the Church in his youth, 
has been wonderfully blessed of God, in a success- 
ful life of amassing wealth. The rich man may 
stand up in prayer-meeting, bold as a Pharisee, tell- 
ing the people how kind God has been to him, 
while the God of heaven knows he stole his way to 
his position, legally, to be sure, but in violation of 
Jesus Christ's law of brotherly love. Among his 
employes his way must be considered right, and the 
employe who opposes him must go, for his will and 
notions, independent of men or God, right or 
wrong, must pass as right. And people natter and 
fawn, and tell him patronizingly that what he does 
is right and smart, when in others it would be 
reprehensible and ridiculous. Here was old 
Pharaoh's condition, and his heart, by God's own 
natural, inevitable law, was hardened, so he could 
not see his wrongs against the Hebrew slaves, nor 
hear their cries of distress. The Bible laconically 
puts it, " God hardened Pharaoh's heart."* 

I am informed that a plutocrat, who is very 
strict in his observance of all eclecticisms, the com- 
mands of the reformatory societies, of his meats, 
drinks, and the Sabbath day, in short, all the 

*Ex. vii., 13. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 195 

traditions of men, one hot summer Saturday 
afternoon, sat in the shade watching some score 
of men digging a trench. At the close of the 
day he went to his foreman and said, " That old 
fellow yonder, I have seen resting on his spade 
several times this afternoon. Give him his time and 
let him go." The foreman replied, " The man is 
old and the day hot ; he has been a long time in our 
employ, and still does a good day's work." But 
the plutocrat answered, " We want effective men ; 
he is getting too old. Give him his time to-night." 
Then he said, " The man over yonder in blue drilling 
overalls, I saw resting on his spade a time or 
two, also. Give him his time to-night." The fore- 
man said, " That man has been sick, and has not 
yet fully recovered. I think he earns the dollar a 
day which we give him, and then, poor fellow, he 
got behind while he was sick, and needs the money 
badly for his family." The plutocrat replied, "We 
have nothing to do with his private affairs or his 
family. Give him his time to-night." Sunday 
morning the plutocrat arose, and with his family 
repaired to the house of God, with a sanctimonious 
air, and when the contribution box came round, laid 
in his check for the benevolences of the church. 
This was seen of men. Few are the plutocrats 
who do not keep up some form of benevolence, to 
make the world and themselves believe that they 
are benevolent and generous, while the poor in 
their employ might as well be between the upper 
and nether millstones. Of such conduct, God says, 



196 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

by the mouth of his prophet Micah, " O man, 
what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of 
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk 
humbly with thy God?"* Jesus, quoting the same 
to the sanctimonious, wealthy, hard-hearted Phari- 
sees, said, " But if ye had known what this meaneth, 
I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not 
have condemned the guiltless." \ The conduct of 
the above-described plutocrat is what is driving 
thousands and tens of thousands from the Church 
of God to-day, and the main reason for the alarm- 
ing gap that yawns between the masses and the 
Church. On the authority of Jesus Christ, we say, 
" It were better for him that a millstone were 
hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than 
that he should offend one of these little ones." j 

'' It is true that some of our plutocrats pay their 
clerks good wages and high-up men good salaries. 
Certainly no one can think that this is done merely 
out of generosity and love for the men. Part of it 
may be to be seen of men, but the larger reason is, 
probably, they have to pay these prices to get the 
service they need and want. But when the small 
dealer is wiped out by the great monopolies grasp- 
ing every line of trade that is worth having, there 
will be an army of competent, efficient and edu- 
cated men turned into the field to compete with the 
host of clerks who now have all they can do to get 
places and meager wages. There will then be no 
opportunities to make a living, except to work for 

•Micah vi., 8. -j-Math. xii., 7. $Luke xvii., 2. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. I97 

the monopolist, or farm, and the farm life will be 
reduced to the merest living. Then there will be 
plenty of good men for every place, and the mo- 
nopolists will have the entire control of the employ- 
ment of them. Think not that these monopolists will 
compete one against another and keep wages up at 
the expense of their returns being less, when they 
could easily agree to make a scale that is only above 
starvation. When the vanity, independence, cruelty, 
power and callosity of the plutocrat's heart has been 
intensified by another quarter of a century, we will 
find that all kind of labor will be treated as in the 
case referred to, of the men digging the ditch. 

Things are bad enough now, but these are only 
the beginnings of sorrow. Men will then be treated 
worse than the blacks in the South in the days of Af- 
rican slavery. The blacks were owned by their mas- 
ters, and they cared for them as their property ; when 
they became old, the attachment, like the farmer to 
his faithful old horse, existed, and they were kept 
for the good they had already done, and were not 
turned out on the roadside to starve and die. But 
in the approaching plutocracy, men will be hired by 
the day, month or year, and their employers will take 
no more thought for their families, what they eat, 
where they sleep, or when they die, than the man who 
hired a livery horse five years ago cares where he is 
to-night. The blacks never tasted civilization, were 
lazy and indifferent to their wrongs, and all the 
sweet melodies of " Suwanee River" and "The 
Old Kentucky Home," written by Foster, who had 



I9S JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

never seen slavery, found little of the reality in the 
actual plantations of the South ; but our children, 
with each generation growing more and more re- 
fined and higher bred, will suffer a hundred-fold 
more in their sensitive nerves than did the blacks 
of the South. The slave-holder was not pushing, 
from climatic influences, but was easy-going ; not 
so thrifty as the Yankee, thirsty for money and 
greedy for gain, and did not oppress, drive and ty- 
rannize, like the coming plutocrat. How fittingly 
the Old Testament writers referred to this relation 
of the employer to the employed as whoredom, and 
against it uttered the most solemn protests and de- 
nunciations ; for it was an entire abnegation of 
Moses' law : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself: I am the Lord."* 

Wages will be reduced to the very lowest living 
point possible, if not to the very verge of starvation. 
The good wages the plutocrat pays to-day is not a 
matter of generosity, but a question of policy. 
Men who get rich do not run their business for the 
advantage of the employes, or the benefit of the 
community ; they do it for what is in it in dollars 
and cents. It pays to give good wages, because 
they cannot get effective men unless they do. It 
pays in dollars and cents to treat them well, for 
when they do they get manifold the value of their 
gifts in better service. Efficient men, not well paid 
and well treated, will seek and find other places of 
employment, or go into business for themselves. 

♦Lev. xix., 18. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. I99 

But when all lines of business shall be in the hands 
of combines and trusts, or, in other words, in the 
hands of the monopolists, even the stores in the 
country and villages will be agencies in the hands 
of men employed by the trusts, and farming will be 
as the peasantry ; a man can no longer go into busi- 
ness and employ himself. Then the already too 
large army of men seeking for employment will be 
greatly swelled, competition will be much sharper, 
and, by the great law of supply and demand, wages 
must sink lower and lower, while the over-fattened 
greed of the plutocrats gains strength. 

Thousands of girls are now sent into prostitution, 
because their employers, to compete with trade, have 
reduced their wages below the living point, and the 
wages of men in factories and mills are reduced 
for the same reason, till it is hard to live. Men 
in factories and mills are given quietly to under- 
stand (and sometimes not # so quietly) that they 
must vote the will of their bosses, or others will 
fill their places. The object and end of the free 
ballot is defeated, and the farther this power of 
money goes, the more flagrant will this abomination 
become. It is not long after the rights of property 
are invaded till the rights of liberty are invaded 
also. The vox ftopuli will no longer be the vox Dei, 
unless it rises and asserts its God-given rights, and 
does it in such a way that there will be no misunder- 
standing in its meaning ; and that is that this 
oppression must stop its onward march and beat a 
hasty retreat. 



200 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

The fact of the matter is, men will prefer 
death rather than life before this thing comes to 
pass ; and many will be the lives offered up on 
the altar of freedom, if the strong arm of the 
force of religion is not invoked while it is yet day, 
and the lamp of privilege still holds out to burn. 
The common people are yet a power in the land, but 
with waning strength. If they do not move soon, 
" The harvest will be past and the summer ended 
and we will not be saved."* Why should we leave 
no heritage to our children worth the having, when 
our fathers left us so much ? " There is a balm in 
Gilead, there is a physician there ; why then is not 
the health of the daughter of my people recov- 
ered."! 

We are not drawing a darker picture than the 
condition of things warrants. To feed avarice does 
not fill *an aching void. The more a man gets, the 
more he wants, and the more cruel his selfishness 
becomes. A radical departure from our present 
way of dealing with the question is demanded, and 
a steadfastness of purpose and a consecration to the 
work such as the world has never seen. 

The kings and potentates of the world got their 
places by conquest or inheritance. As a rule, they 
were not greedy money-makers. If they had their 
wives, their wine, enough revenue to support these, 
and were let alone, they were mostly content. 
Their subjects were born into the world under 

*Jer. viii., 20. tJer. viii., 22. 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 201 

oppression and never knew the sweets of freedom, 
and were ignorant of their wrongs. 

But the plutocrat gains his position by the exer- 
cise of selfishness, and the higher he rises the more 
potent it is in its development. These fortunes 
have been built up with total disregard for all fair 
dealing and in utter violation "of the law of broth- 
erly love and the rights of humanity. No class of 
men so dodge taxes as the rich. The higher men 
rise in wealth, the more heartless they are in oppres- 
sion of the hireling, the more unscrupulous they 
are in their dealings, and the harder it becomes 
to convict them in their violations of the law. The 
building up of great fortunes leaves behind them in 
the wake of their path wrecked corporations, weak 
dealers crowded down and out, their property sold 
when they were helpless and when it was under 
dishonor, for a mere bagatelle of what it was really 
worth. Added to this, our plutocratic governors 
will be men who were born poor. The most cruel 
slave-drivers were those who were raised from 
their own number, so our coming masters will be all 
the more cruel from the fact that they were raised 
from the poor and common people. 

To become great in the political field requires 
a great schooling and drill in accommodating one's 
self to the pleasures, conveniences and accommoda- 
tions of others, and one learns to act the gentleman, 
or he is soon ruled out of the field and off the race 
track for honors. To be a great general requires 
heroism and the endangering of one's life, and all 



202 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

for the cause, thus developing high patriotism and 
unselfishness ; moreover, he must please and inspire 
the army by true and great manhood, or the soldiers 
will not follow him. To be a great orator, a man 
must have large sympathy for the common people, 
or he cannot draw and attract them by that mag- 
netism which is required. To be a poet, a man 
must have a line nature and be sensitive to the higher 
graces and qualities of the human heart. But to 
get rich, the less soul a man has and the more de- 
ceitful his heart, the better, provided he has a com- 
manding nature and a clear brain. It takes a man 
with a low estimation of true happiness, true man- 
hood, and a high appreciation of money. A man 
with a great soul cannot get rich. The demands 
for the good of his fellow-men will take away 
his opportunities for great deals, and would take his 
money if he had it. 

The man who spends his money for strong drink 
may reform and redeem the time, and still be the 
husband and father to his family in providing for 
them. No man need spend his money with the 
saloon-keeper, and does not, unless he wills to do 
so, and it is in his power and choice to be free from 
him. But the plutocrat, like the midnight robber, 
robs us with no consent of ours, or even complicity 
with him. He compels the circumstances around 
us which put us in his grasp, and then wrests from 
us that which we have a divine right to from God 
Himself. If a man should kill himself with strong 
drink, as long as ther e are opportunities for the 



THE PLUTOCRACY. 203 

people, his wife and children may economize their 
forces and means, and still enjoy and have the com- 
forts of life. But when the opportunities are taken 
up and held in the hands of the few mighty and 
wealthy, the seven vials of wrath will be poured 
out upon the earth. 

Of course, there will be difficulties to be sur- 
mounted in getting rid of these great fortunes. 
And to do this will tax the energy, intelligence and 
piety of this generation ; and if they do it wisely, 
their names will go down on the pages of history in 
high honor. Why should we wait till all the great 
lines of trade are in the hands of the few and we 
cast out of the garden of the Lord's heritage ? Shall 
we talk about the washing of cups and brazen ves- 
sels, and a new moon and a holiday, and neglect the 
weightier matters of the law — justice, mercy and 
faith? When will things make themselves better? 
Will it be when we are bound hand and foot, and 
when the common people are reduced to the servi- 
tude of hirelings? Do not the sweat-houses, the 
enforced idleness of millions of men who would 
gladly work ; the girls walking the streets, not 
because they are lazy and unwilling to work, 
but because the condition of society compels them 
to their vocation for food and clothing ; the 
thousands going up and down the world, seek- 
ing for work and finding none, arouse us from our 
slumber and point us to our dangers? Are not 
these poor, unfortunate ones where we and our 
children will be in a very few years, if the present 
state of things continues? 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 



T|ju IBERTY and freedom mark the tide of rising 
ll^fy civilization, and in its fullness are equal 
rights and opportunities to all men. Anything 
which hampers the equality of rights to all men, 
ties up the natural productive powers of nature and 
holds them from the masses, is antagonistic to civil- 
ization and hostile to liberty in her onward march. 
The gigantic foe with which liberty has always had 
to contend in her march towards freedom is right of 
title. Where honorable men were vested with this 
right of title, and no social or civil law of the land 
was violated in consequence thereof, history shows 
that the people have never risen up to remove their 
wrongs and assert their rights. When our forefathers 
rose up to throw off the yoke of the mother country, 
the inspiring motive was not that England had no 
right to rule over the thirteen colonies and that it 
was hostile to their unalienable rights ; but it was 
because the rule over them had been enlarged and 
abused, till it became painful, oppressive and out- 
rageous. " All experience hath shown that men 
are more disposed to suffer, where evils are suffer- 

204 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 205 

able, than to right themselves by abolishing the 
forms to which they are accustomed."* But when 
the fathers framed the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, they made it revolve around the principle 
that this Nation should be a land where all men 
would have equal rights to life and the pursuit of 
happiness. 

Notwithstanding, in this land of the free and 
home of the brave, nearly one hundred years passed 
away before they could apply the principle of their 
Nation's life to the man whose skin was black. 
This was because, forsooth, the great right of title 
or right of property held the black man a slave. 
Two of the largest interests of the Nation — cotton 
and sugar — were supposed to rest on slavery, and 
it was thought the Nation would be bankrupted if 
the slaves were set free. This looks to us now like 
counting out dollars against the souls of men, but it 
did not look so to the people then, and even forty 
years ago there could scarcely have been found a 
man who thought it was wrong to hold property in 
human flesh, if that flesh was covered with a black 
skin. It was hard to arouse public conscience and 
get even men prOud of their freedom to see that it 
was wrong to hold their fellow-men as property, 
and persuade these religious men to endorse the 
great fore-ordained, eternal truth of God, namely, 
that no one should attempt to control the choice 
and free acts of the soul of another. The crack of 
the slave-driver's whip was echoed by orators, and 

'The Declaration of Independence. 



206 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

pictures of wives separated from their husbands and 
children torn from their mothers' arms were held 
before the imagination of the people of the North, 
on lips of eloquence never excelled in the land. 
Public sentiment was stirred in that wonderful 
campaign for brotherly love, also by songs inspired 
in the souls of kind poets, which brought the sor- 
rows and sufferings of the slaves on the plantations 
to our homes and firesides. Books were written 
which had an immense circulation, but still the 
great majority of the people remained comparatively 
indifferent to the great curse resting on their land 
and Nation. 

Of course, they held that immorality was wrong, 
and the family ties were sacred, but right of title in 
their eyes was divine, and whatever else suffered, it 
must not be touched. Cotton was king and sugar 
was queen, and he who dared to disturb the slaves 
was striking at the prosperity of the Nation, and 
his teachings were treasonable and insurrectional. 
George Washington, the father of our country, held 
slaves, and Abraham had slaves, and the apostle 
said, " Servants, be obedient to them that are your 
masters"* (which, by the way, was only a wise 
admonition of Paul to the slaves not to give their 
masters needless excuse and occasion for increasing 
their burdens and subjecting them to painful pun- 
ishment), and so the changes were rung by states- 
men and clergy. Able statesmen and eloquent 
ministers satisfied the South and the conservative 

*Eph. vi., 5. 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 207 

people of the North, which constituted the aristoc- 
racy and wealth, that slavery was not wrong, per se, 
in itself, but only the abuse of slavery was a sin. 
The first Abolitionists, moved with the love of 
Christ in their hearts for their brethren in chains, 
were branded as heretics, and the early movement 
was driven into infidelity against the Church of 
Christ by the blindness of its own people. The 
ministers declared that better men never sat down 
at the Communion table of the Lord Jesus Christ 
than some of the greatest slaveholders of the 
South. And the inference to be drawn was — 
hands off slavery. They claimed the blacks were 
naturally servants, and incapable of self-govern- 
ment and exercising the rights of freedom. These 
arguments were exactly the same as our plutocratic 
argument, that the poor among us are incapable of 
self-government, and need some one to conserve 
their money for them. Only in our case it is with- 
out any reason or justification of argument. It is 
radically non-American and in violation of the very 
heart-life of our Declaration of Independence. 

The devil can hold steady in his possessions and 
appear quite saint-like as long as he is not disturbed, 
but when disturbed, he is almost sure to show 
his cloven foot. He grasps his holdings tighter, 
rendering them more tyrannical and offensive, and 
men rise and throw off the yoke of his oppression. 
Lincoln was elected on a platform with no plank 
in it demanding the abolition of slavery. The sen- 
timent of the people was not up to this point ; but 



208 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

they did refuse to allow the North to be made any 
longer the hunting-ground for the fugitive slave, 
and asked that slavery be limited to its then present 
boundaries. This in reality was an admission that 
slavery was wicked and wrong, but they would 
not touch it where it was established, for that 
came in conflict with the right of title, and before 
it they stood still and bowed their heads, though 
that right was held in absolute defiance of Jesus 
Christ's entire teachings and life. The ministers 
stood before the slaves exhorting them to obey their 
masters, as an oracle from heaven bidding them to 
be content with their chains and endure their 
wrongs. All this they did on one misinter- 
preted and misapplied passage of Scripture, while 
they set aside the whole system of divine truth in 
the Old and New Testaments. Of course, they 
did wish the masters would stop breaking the 
seventh commandment, and compelling the blacks 
to do the same. However, the slave must obey his 
master, and they hoped in some way or other to 
get the masters to quit their wicked ways ; but they 
gave the whole of their energies in endeavoring to 
reconcile the slaves to their masters, and trying to 
get the tormenting, fanatical Abolitionist to quiet 
down. We must not blame these ministers and 
statesmen too much for their partiality to the slave- 
holders, till we consider that the aristocracy and 
wealthy men of the Nation were slaveholders, and 
they were standing before the right of title, in the 
hands of wealth, as we are doing to-day, cowering 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 200 

before it and fawning on the monopolists and 
wealthy men. 

But God would not suffer the wrong any longer. 
The doctrine of brotherly love is the mightiest 
power that ever filled the engine of the human 
heart, and when fired by a divine coal from off the 
altar of God, there is not strength enough in men 
or devils to withstand it or stop it in its course. 
The leaven of the kingdom of heaven, which the 
woman took and hid in three measures of meal till 
the whole lump was leavened, was working. Slav- 
ery was wrong, and the time had fully come when 
God's people must go free. 

Satan, in his madness and blindness, led on the 
people of the South till they fired on Fort Sumpter. 
The Nation was plunged into civil war. For three 
long years the people stood out against God, 
while battlefields were strewn with the blood 
of the brightest sons of our land, and every house 
sat in mourning. The struggle was long, and it 
seemed as if it were almost even hung, yet con- 
fined so that the soil of no state was stained with 
the blood of battlefields where slavery never had 
existed. At length, God intervened His hand, in 
His righteousness determining that the wrath of man 
should praise Him, and one sentiment was made to 
prevail all over the North, which was : It was im- 
possible to put down the Rebellion, if the slaves 
were not freed, and the voice of the people, as the 
voice of God, demanded of Lincoln that he must 
let the people go. Then, and not till then, Lincoln 



2IO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

wrote and signed the Emancipation Proclamation, 
which was a war measure, for the people in the 
North were not even yet ready, on Christian 
grounds, to declare that the slave ought to be and 
must be freed. 

At the Hebrew slaves' emancipation, the paschal 
lambs were slain, typifying the crucifixion of Jesus 
Christ, Who should be slain for the ransom of all 
men. Jesus Christ's death was an offering for free- 
dom on earth, as well as for freedom from sin, to 
prepare men for heaven ; so all bloody wars for 
liberty since that are superfluous. But, why, in our 
late war, should there have been a second offering 
for sin, with the lambs the sons of the Nation, 
when " our great High Priest had once offered him- 
self for the sins of the people ; and by himself 
purged our sins, and sat down on the right hand of 
the Majesty on high ; from henceforth expecting till 
his enemies be made his footstool. For by one 
offering he hath perfected forever them that are 
sanctified."* What ill-timed shedding of human 
blood and needless sacrifice of precious lives ! 

Had the Church, north and south, sanctified in 
brotherly love, obedient to the Master's command 
when He said, "Therefore all things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them,"j- risen in her might, she would have 
wiped the dark stain of slavery from off the face of 
the land, and that without the farther shedding of 
blood. Had she done so, what treasures would 

*Heb. fMath. vii., 12. 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 211 

have been saved ! how many precious lives would 
have been spared ! and how many broken hearts 
never would have been ! 

They counted out cotton and sugar, money and 
title to property, against the lives and the unalien- 
able rights of their fellow-men ; but the price they 
bargained for in the betrayal of Jesus Christ's 
brethren, they could not hold, and had to give it up, 
and we confess we sinned against innocent blood. 

We stand, to-day, confronted with a question of 
far greater magnitude. The question is whether 
we shall be plunged into war, insurrection, blood- 
shed, discontent such as the world never saw, 
arson, perhaps anarchy, atheism, tyranny, slavery 
for our children ; or shall we rise up and wrest the 
scepter, wrongfully held by capital, from her hands. 
It is weak to talk about reconciling capitalists and 
the laborers. God never will let them be recon- 
ciled. He has sounded the notes of freedom, and 
He never will beat a retreat. The laboring men 
may have done many things which were wrong and 
advocated many foolish principles, but, neverthe- 
less, their voice is the ancient cry awakened from 
the brick-kilns of Egypt, and their cries have 
entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and, 
I tell you, He will avenge them speedily. War is 
better than slavery, -but better still is agitation, clear, 
positive, fearless, unselfish ; not as man pleasers, but 
pleasing God and in the sight of God, declaring the 
whole counsels of God, as Jesus did, and then being 
willing to go with Him to crucifixion. While cap- 



212 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ital and labor will never shake hands and be at 
peace, with God's approval, capital and labor will be 
at peace, and that will be when labor holds and owns 
capital, for capital belongs to labor. The time has 
fully come when the divine order which went forth 
at the morning of creation : " By the sweat of thy 
face thou shalt eat bread till thou return to the 
ground," shall be obeyed, as being the only 
divine right of title to property. It is not a 
question whether it will or will not be done, but 
the question is whether we shall be heroes in the 
battle for the Lord, or whether we, like the cow- 
ardly Hebrew slaves fearing the giants in Canaan 
and the sons of Anak, shall not go up and take the 
world for God against the mighty. Our carcasses 
may rot in the wilderness of weakness and timidity, 
if not selfishness ; but God's truth will march on. 
We are brought face to face with the enemy, Right 
of Title, unmasked and uncovered. We must deter- 
mine and settle the great question that right of title 
to great wealth is a peril to the happiness of men, 
is wrong, unlawful, and we must compel it to give 
way. This is the only thing which will take the 
wild mania for money-making out of the hearts of 
the people, and this effectually put into execution 
will do it. This is God's remedy. It is Jesus 
Christ's remedy, as I will show in another chapter. 
There is before us the opportunity of being the 
greatest heroes the world has ever seen, or, if not, 
the biggest skulks that ever filled a coward's grave. 
The Dred Scott Decision and the sermons and de- 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 213 

bates of the pro-slavery divines should stand in this 
Nation as a loud warning to those who would sup- 
press the awakening sentiments of the masses, call- 
ing for higher liberty and greater accomplishments 
in brotherly love, lest they too be found unhappily 
fighting against God ; for the word of the Lord 
will have free course, it will run and be glorified. 
The great principle to be established is not with- 
out its forerunners in law. We may say that we 
are in the starlight age of this truth, and waiting 
for the great orb to rise upon our world. Our 
police regulation, the right or power of every sov- 
ereign state, binds every one of its citizens to use 
his property so as not to interfere with the reason- 
able use and enjoyment by others of their property. 
Every property owner is bound to so use and enjoy 
his own property as not to interfere with the gen- 
eral welfare of the community in which he lives. 
Whatever restraints the legislature may impose 
upon the use and enjoyment of property within 
the reason and principle of this duty, the owner 
must submit to, and for any inconvenience or loss 
which he sustains thereby, he is without remedy ; it 
is his misfortune. To illustrate : A building which 
is in such condition as to endanger life and prop- 
erty, may be declared a nuisance, and destroyed 
without compensation to the owner. A man who 
owned the fee of the land of part of the Boston 
harbor was forbidden by an act of the legislature 
from taking sand from the sea shore, and when he 
did, he was found guilty under this act. A hog 



214 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

pen may be abolished, or a stagnant pool of water 
filled up or drained, without compensation for the 
property destroyed or interfered with, and at the 
expense of the owner. Low, w T et grounds in a pop- 
ulous location may be filled up at the expense of the 
owner, for the purpose of preserving the public 
health. Intoxicating liquors kept or made in vio- 
lation of the law may be destroyed and their manu- 
facture prohibited, though the result of such pro- 
hibiting may be to render the buildings, machinery 
and fixtures used for that purpose of little or no 
value. A public nuisance may be abated, and 
private property interfered with or destroyed for 
the public welfare. The conduct of any business 
detrimental to public interests may be prohibited. 
Property kept or made in violation of law may be 
destroyed. 

Then the same principle of invading the right of 
title of some for the safety of the many is recog- 
nized in law, of the demolition of buildings to pre- 
vent the spread of conflagration where the owner 
is without remedy, unless specially provided for. 
Also in war, private property may be taken or de- 
stroyed in the enemy's country, whether belonging 
to foe or friend, useful to the enemy for attack or 
defence or subsistence ; and in the actual operations 
of war, in battle, in the movements of troops, in 
construction of works of attack or defence, in all 
these cases, property taken, injured or destroyed, the 
owners of the property are without remedy. Even 
property wantonly destroyed by troops comes under 



THE RIGHT OF TITLE. 21 1 



the same law- In all these cases, the general good 
and welfare is paramount to the personal or indi- 
vidual interests holding or owning the property. 
The sovereignty of the state is exercised for the 
protection of the public welfare, and every right is 
held subject to the restriction that it shall not be 
exercised so as to injure others. The great law of 
eminent domain is the right or power of a sovereign 
state to appropriate private property to particu- 
lar uses, for the purpose of promoting the general 
welfare. For the public good, the property of the 
individual is taken, without his consent, for the 
purpose of being devoted to some particular use, 
either by the state itself, or by a corporation, pub- 
lic or private, or by a private citizen. 

Every right, from an absolute ownership in prop- 
erty down to a mere easement,. is purchased and held 
subject to the restriction that it shall be so exercised 
as not to injure others. It is no new principle to be 
established, but the application of a principle 
already recognized as humane and God-like. Ours 
is to apply it in its broadest sense and against the 
strongest powers. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE FOLLY OF WEALTH. 



J^N ALL ages there has been an exaggerated de- 
d| sire for wealth, an exaggerated admiration for 
those who possess it, and an exaggerated belief of 
its influence in producing or increasing the happi- 
ness of life ; and from these errors a flood of cares, 
jealousies and meannesses have devastated the life of 
man. There is no sin in the world so absolutely 
inexcusable and that has so little reason in it, and, 
at the same time, so destructive to good morals and 
the happiness of all, as the sin of hoarding up wealth 
and riches. The testimony of all who have pos- 
sessed it is that it does not add a single hour more 
of joy or substantial pleasure. It makes an abject 
slave both of body and soul out of the man winning 
it. The race for wealth dries up all the nobler pas- 
sions of the soul, makes a man selfish, fills him with 
vanity, pride, removes him from touch with his fel- 
lows, and shuts out from him that largest field for 
enjoyment in this life, viz., the pleasure which a 
man receives in rejoicing with his neighbors in their 
prosperity, and the consciousness within that his life 
is making their sorrows less and their happiness 

216 



THE FOLLY OF WEALTH. 



greater. In the chase for wealth, men break them- 
selves down at forty and often die before they are 
fifty. If this were all, the world could well afford 
to spare the selfish fellow. It would be sweeter, 
the average honesty among men would be greater, 
and the world would be happier without him. The 
Scriptures would be fulfilled that " the wicked 
shall fall by his own wickedness, and when the 
wicked perish there is shouting."* His sin then 
would be no worse than drunkenness and harlotry, 
in that it would be merely self -destructive. 

However, the shortening of the days of the rich 
man is the smaller part of his sin. The evils caused 
by wealthy men making crime fashionable ; great 
firms, in the race for wealth, crowding down the 
wages of girls below the living point, and so com- 
pelling them to go into lives of shame to obtain a 
living, and making men toil hard for a mere liveli- 
hood for their families, are by far the greater crimes 
against society and God. 

James says : " Go to now, ye rich men, weep 
and howl for your miseries that shall come upon 
you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments 
are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; 
and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, 
and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have 
heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, 
the hire of the labourers who have reaped down 
your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, 
crieth : and the cries of them which have reaped 

♦Prov. xi., 5, 10. 



2lS JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been 
wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day 
of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the 
just; and he doth not resist you."* The richer a 
man gets, the farther he is removed from being de- 
pendent upon his fellow-men. This dependence 
upon each other is the equation of correction in 
life which checks our natures to keep us from be- 
coming overbearing with our fellow-men. Any 
class of men will bear with good grace reproof for 
their sins from the messenger of God, given in a 
meek and kind spirit, better than the rich man, and 
especially if this be for his sins of money-getting. 
The minister who would dare to reprove one of his 
rich church-members for avarice and grasping the 
opportunities of others, would very soon be where 
he would imagine himself in a lion's den or a fiery 
furnace heated seven times more than it was wont 
to be heated, like the one into which the great 
plutocrat Nebuchadnezzar cast Shadrach, Meshach 
and Abed-nego. These wealthy men would con- 
sider it as badly out of taste to be reproved as the 
scribes and Pharisees did the reproofs of the Lord 
Jesus Christ in condemning them. When the Lord 
reproved the wealthy Pharisees, His disciples came 
to Him, saying : " Knowest thou that the Pharisees 
were offended, after they heard this saying ? "f So the 
people of the congregation would run to the good 
man, chiding him for offending such influential 

*James v., 1-6. f Math, xv., 12. 



THE FOLLY OF WEALTH. 219 

members of the Church, and advising him to preach 
the gospel, and let his church-members' business 
alone, and those who do so much to keep up the 
Church. 

Every man knows that the desire for one million 
gratified makes a stronger demand for five millions 
more. The more he gets, the more selfish and grasp- 
ing and self-willed his nature becomes. The more 
he gets, the more overbearing and dictatorial he is. 
The more he gets, the greater the premium he puts 
on laziness for his sons, and the larger the prize he 
puts into his daughter's hand that it may be sought 
from the love not for her, but for the prize the hand 
contains. So, when a wealthy man's daughter is 
married, the newspapers have to assure us it was a 
love affair, to make us believe it, and we would not 
then were it not for the immaculate reliability of 
the press. 

Of all creatures, I take it, the devil is the most 
unhappy and miserable, and next to him, his devils 
around him ; so in the reign of plutocracy, the pluto- 
crat will not only be the most God-forsaken, hard- 
hearted man, but he will be of all men the most 
miserable, and his family will come next to him in 
misery in the hell which he is trying to make out 
of the earth. God's world is for His children, and 
He intends that they shall live well and enjoy its 
good things. Their right to the opportunity to 
take hold of these temporal blessings is inviolable, 
and belongs to all alike, and he who takes it from 
the people is the most damnable thief and robber 



220 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the world contains. God, in His wise justice, has 
so ordained that the man transgressing His holy- 
law shall suffer the deepest blighting of the curse. 

The most popular, and the defense considered 
the most potent for the excuse of great wealth, is 
that rich men do so much good with their money. 
This much is true, when a rich man gives away any 
money, all of the world hears about it. One of our 
most intelligent and most observing plutocrats, in 
an address in which he was advocating the advan- 
tage of great wealth in the hands of a few men, as 
conservators of the interests of the poor, said : 
" For every thousand dollars spent for so-called 
charity by wealthy men, nine hundred and fifty had 
better have been thrown into the sea, because it 
helps to increase the very evil it was intended 
to cure." And in this estimation and opinion, he 
said he was supported by one of the most promi- 
nent college professors of our land. Now, if there 
were no other reason why the vineyard should be 
taken from the rich and given unto other husband- 
men, surely this is enough. The record of the 
common people's benevolence dare not be so im- 
peached by anyone. 

As long as men are allowed, and not only allowed 
to pile up fortunes, but are deified and worshiped 
as little gods for their success in so doing, they will 
continue, and the evil results will increase. So 
long as great fortunes are made and the holders 
of them are adored, the hearts of energetic men 
will be fired to emulate their example, and the 



THE FOLLY OF WEALTH. 221 

intensity of the struggle will continue to engender 
deceit, over-reaching, unfair dealing and straight- 
out lying. High honor, strict integrity, brotherly 
love, will continue to flee away, as a fugitive, before 
the maddened mania and the increasing, reckless, 
wild rush for wealth and money. 

In the dethronement of wealth and the rich man, 
we will be met with an argument which will be 
held as invincible, namely, the great injustice we 
are doing the wealthy man. Rich men and their 
friends will oppose us with all the desperation and 
cunning deceit of Satan's best wits, and with his 
loudest howlings, when they see we are in earnest 
in our work. So it was in the days of our Saviour's 
ministry on earth, when He met those who were 
possessed, " And cried with a loud voice, and said, 
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the 
most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou 
torment me not."* It is farther said, when the 
people came to Jesus, "And see him that was 
possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting 
and clothed, and in his right mind ; and they were 
afraid, "f When the ordeal of the rich man letting 
go of his money is passed, and he sits clothed in 
brotherly love, and in his right mind, then the 
people will fear and the God of heaven will be 
honored. 

Have we not been working away at the branches 
long enough to demonstrate to all that we are 
making no headway against the vice by trimming 

*Mark v., 7. fMark v., 15. 



222 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

off limbs and leaves? More rapidly than we can 
trim them off, they grow again. John the Baptist 
announced Jesus' coming as the laying of the axe 
at the root of the tree. Why should we attempt to 
direct the blows of the gospel any longer at the 
branches, while they are divinely aimed at the root. 
The fan is in Jesus' hand, and He will thoroughly 
cleanse His threshing floor, and the wheat He will 
gather into His garner, but the chaff He will burn 
with unquenchable fire. 

Why not make the bulls and bears of Wall street, 
the senators and presidents, the Englishmen traffick- 
ing in our dearest interests of life, stop that which 
is fun for them, but awful cruelty and misery to 
the masses? There is absolutely no sense in a few 
men making a foot-ball out of the interests of the 
people, merely to let them pile up wealth at the 
expense of poverty, squalor and crime among the 
many. The time will come when such conduct 
will be looked upon as worse than slavery, and the 
man who deals in it worse than the man who hunted 
and trapped negroes in the woods of Africa, to 
bring to America as slaves. 

In the name of Christianity and brotherly love, 
what right has one man, or a few men, to sit at the 
head of large capital and trade, and draw in their 
thousands and millions, when they who do the work 
do it for a scanty living, and the difference is due 
to the fact alone that this one man or few men have 
managed so as to get the title of the property in 
their hands? Why, in a free land with equal rights 



THE FOLLY OF WEALTH. 223 

to life and the pursuit of happiness, should a few 
have millions poured in upon them at the expense 
and hard toil of the many? The Golden Rule of 
the Master, " Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them, for this is the law and the prophets,"* is not 
a mere flourish of rhetoric, but it is a practical order 
which must command the business of the world. 
The apostle puts it, "We then that are strong ought 
to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to 
please ourselves." j- To ask how all this great 
change, in minutiae, is going to be brought about, is 
a child's question. No men entering the threshold 
of a reformation ever saw their path all the way 
through. They knew right was right and wrong 
was wrong, and they acted upon this great princi- 
ple, and trusted to God for the results. To stand 
counting the dangers to be encountered is the talk 
and excuse of a coward. When Moses and Aaron 
went before Pharaoh to ask that he would let the 
people go, they did not know how that great eman- 
cipation would be brought about, nor what they 
afterward would do and become. Pharaoh held 
title to his property in the flesh of the Hebrew 
slaves, as indisputably then, as any title rests on 
property to-day. Moses and Aaron trusted God, 
and let God direct them, and this is the secret of 
the power of the movement. 

When they went out free, the mountains stood 
on either side of them, the Red sea in front of them, 

*Math. vii., 12. fRom. xv., 1. 



224 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and Pharaoh and his hosts behind them ; but God 
made the sea to divide and the Hebrew slaves went 
over dry-shod, which Pharaoh and his hosts assay- 
ing to do, were drowned in the returning waters of 
the sea. It has been with every great reformation, 
and ever will be, that God has led His people out of 
their house of bondage with a high and an out- 
stretched arm, and in a way they knew not of. 

God would have taken those slaves to a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey in less than a month, if 
they had not played the coward. Shall we repeat 
the folly? The Hebrew slaves would not rise up 
to throw off their thralldom, till their lives were 
embittered with sore bondage and their children 
slain at birth. Shall we, with the history of the 
nations spread open before us, repeat their follies 
and not improve by the examples of the past? 



CHAPTER XV. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 

WHAT God believes man had better believe. 
" Neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will re- 
veal him."* The world is slowly, but positively, com- 
ing to the conclusion that the teachings of Jesus 
Christ are truth crystallized in words and sentences. 
Though His life has been under the microscopes of 
philosophers and the dissecting knives of critics 
and scholars for over eighteen hundred years, the 
answer to the question, " Which of you convinceth 
me of sin? "■)• must ever be, No man, Lord. " And 
if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" 
must be answered by believing, or stand con- 
demned. 

Infidelity has well-nigh laid by the weapons of 
her rebellion. Her arrows for two thousand years 
have fallen down broken before the Scriptures, 
without leaving a dent or scratch upon its sacred 
page. The charm of disbelief has passed away and 
lost its power, save in the monstrosity of a few men 
in the pulpits and the pews, who pose as friends of 
the Bible, while, at the same time, they endeavor 

*Math. xi M 27. fjohn viii., 46. 
225 



226 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

to deal deadly blows in its back. We do not desire 
to be discourteous to learned men and honest inves- 
tigation. We would have as much respect for 
scholarship and commentators as any man ought to 
have ; but when a man's opinions are squarely 
across God's revealed truth, we cannot and will not 
regard him. 

"I search in vain," said Napoleon Bonaparte, 
" in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or 
anything which can approach the gospel. Neither 
history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature, 
offer me anything with which I am able to compare 
it or to explain it. Here everything is extraordi- 
nary. The more I consider the gospel, the more I 
am assured that there is nothing there which is not 
beyond the march of events, and above the human 
mind. Every phrase has a sense complete, which 
traces the perfection of unity, and the profundity of 
the whole. Book unique ! Who but God could 
produce that type, that idea of perfection, equally 
exclusive and original? What proof of the divinity 
of Christ ! With an empire so absolute, He has 
but one single end — the spiritual amelioration of 
individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union 
to that which is true, the holiness of the soul." 

It is certainly time to quit quarreling with the 
revealed truth in God's Word, and to stop trying 
to explain away any of its plain teachings and 
doctrines ; but to take it as a lamp to our feet and 
a light to our path, obeying its commandments 
and trusting its promises. It is the sheet anchor 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 227 

of our safety ; our guide in time and hope in 
eternity. 

We shall not attempt to name any sum of money 
necessary for a man to have in order to be called rich. 
The Bible does not attempt it, and we will leave 
it, as the Scriptures do, to the intuitions or common 
understanding of the people. There are concepts 
which are clear to us and are understood by all 
alike ; yet, when we undertake to harness them up 
in a definition, we appreciate the fact that lan- 
guage is not a perfect medium for the communica- 
tion of our thoughts one to another. This much, 
however, is doubtless true : The industrious, eco- 
nomical man, gathering a competency to provide 
for his household, and fortify against disease and 
old age, by honest industry and economy, is not the 
man whom our Saviour speaks of as being a rich 
man, and against whom His invectives lie. 

When the Saviour unfolded His vivid picture of 
the world beyond, it was, " The rich man also died 
and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being 
in torments."* The impression is, of course, that 
this was some rich man whom the world said was 
wicked. But Jesus did not say so. All we know 
about this man is what is given in the few verses 
in this chapter, and that is, he was rich and he went 
to hell when he died. We protest against any man 
adding anything to his history, more than what is 
written ; and this protest we make on the authority 
of John the Revelator, who sealed the New Testa- 

*Luke xvi., 22, 23. 



228 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ment with these words : " If any man shall add 
unto these things, God shall add unto him the 
plagues that are written in this book ; and if any 
man shall take away from the words of the book 
of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out 
of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and 
from the things which are written in this book."* 
The story goes on and says, "There was a certain 
beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, 
full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs 
which fell from the rich man's table : moreover the 
dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to 
pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the 
angels into Abraham's bosom. "j- The word here 
translated beggar does not necessarily, in the original 
Greek, mean beggar, but only a poor man. Here 
we find no reason given why the beggar or poor 
man went to heaven, unless his poverty is the 
reason that Jesus saved him. The grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ is a free gift, and He can bestow 
it where He chooses. All He permits us here co 
know of Lazarus is that he was poor and he went 
to heaven. If the Lord sees fit to equalize things 
in the next world by giving the poor man credit on 
account of the sufferings and wrongs which he en- 
dured in this life, and charges up condemnation 
against the rich for the suffering they caused the 
poor in the world, who has any right to complain ; 
and does it not meet the instincts and emotions 
the heart often feels? 

*Rev. xxii., 1.8, 19. fLtike xvi., 20, 21, 22. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 229 

The story further says, u And in hell the rich 
man lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth 
Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And 
he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on 
me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of 
his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I 
am tormented in this flame."* The rich man seems 
to have been very much surprised to find himself 
in hell. He probably had been a leader in the 
temple and Church of God on earth. He was a 
professed and acknowledged son of Abraham. He 
appeals to Abraham as father, and Abraham ac- 
knowledges him as son. 

Abraham, in acknowledging him as son, says : 
" Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst 
thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, 
but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."! 
Here we have Abraham's statement in justifying 
the actions of God in sending the rich man to hell, 
while He received the poor man, Lazarus, into 
heaven. Abraham does not make one reference or 
insinuation that the rich man had done anything 
that was looked upon by men as unfitting a man 
for the kingdom of heaven, or that Lazarus complied 
with any of the prescribed rules among men 
which entitle a man to a name among the people 
of God on earth ; but gives as the reason for the 
condition of these men, that the rich man was rich 
and had his abundance in this world, while Laz- 
arus was poor and had his penury. 

•Luke xvi., 23, 24. f Luke xvi., 25. 



23O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

We know that great riches with the few are 
always at the expense of great poverty with the 
many. Now take it that this rich man absorbed a 
large field of the productive powers of nature, and 
he, with others like him, tied up the opportunities 
of the land, and enjoyed them, clothed in purple 
and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day ; 
while Lazarus and his poor fellows were left, as a 
consequence, in hard poverty. Then every sentence 
of the history has a meaning, and the story is com- 
plete without commentators telling us what Jesus 
must have meant to say, but did not. This rich 
man was condemned for his large money-holding, 
so far as the narrative shows, and without one word 
being said about how he got his money, or what 
kind of a character he bore. 

But now, did Lazarus get to heaven because he 
was poor? The sacred page reveals no other rea- 
son. It says he was poor and was in heaven, in 
contrast with the rich man, who was rich and in 
hell. If it be true that, out of the abundance of the 
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and pity for the 
poor and wronged, Lazarus, who had been cheated 
by the rich out of his pleasures of life on earth, 
was taken to heaven, or Paradise, for this cause, 
then there is a deeper meaning than is commonly 
supposed in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
when He said, "But many that are first shall be 
last, and the last first . "* 

It is certainly true that the poor seemed to enlist 

*Math. x., 31. 






JESUS AND RICH MEN. 231 

our Saviour's special care, and upon them He 
bestowed His favors while on earth, and even called 
them His brethren. James said of them, "Hearken, 
my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor 
of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the king- 
dom which he hath promised?"* The poor 
despised Samaritan, an outcast from the Church on 
earth, was Jesus' type of a true man — a good 
neighbor in the kingdom of heaven, or brotherly 
love, He was establishing on earth. 

When the rich man found that his doom was 
hopelessly fixed, he begged Father Abraham that 
he would send Lazarus, or someone else from the 
dead, to tell his five brethren on earth how this 
matter was, and how it seemed to the disembodied 
spirits beyond the shore of time. For he had never 
understood it as he did now, viz., that his riches 
were costing him his eternal welfare and his never- 
dying soul. He had been favored all his life, and 
was in the habit of taking everything which came 
in his reach for his own, or at least trying it, was 
remarkably successful in doing so, and he supposed 
heaven would be no exception to the rule. 

But Abraham refused to send anyone to the 
earth, on the grounds, " They have Moses and the 
prophets; let them hear them."f Moses' law pro- 
vided for the poor, and had it been obeyed, no 
monopolies could have grown up in Israel. The 
minor prophets were one unceasing wail and pro- 
test against the rich and their oppression of the 

*James ii., 5. f Luke xvi., 29. 



232 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

poor. The people had enough to know it was a sin 
against God and men to be rich. They had the 
truth and the evidence ; and if they would not read 
and understand it, it was no fault of God. But the 
wealthy man thought if somebody would go to the 
world and tell his five brethren how it was, saying 
the same words Abraham did, " Son, remember that 
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and 
likewise Lazarus evil things," they would know 
their wealth was damning them, and would give it 
away, that they might not come to that place of 
torment. Jesus, who came down from heaven, has 
told the story for the rich man in hell, and we see 
that Abraham was correct when he said, " They will 
not be persuaded though one rose from the dead."* 
But this being true as against sinners before Christ, 
and now, with His wonderfully plain teachings, 
what will be the condemnation of our wealthy 
men, and how will they be without excuse at the 
great bar of God for their sin of wealth? " He 
that despised Moses' law died without mercy under 
two or three witnesses : Of how much sorer punish- 
ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who 
hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he 
was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done 
despite unto the spirit of grace? For we know 
him that hath said, " Vengeance belongeth unto me, 
I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, the 
Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing 

*Luke xvi., 31. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 233 

to fall into the hands of the living God."* By 
reading the following verses, it is evident that Paul 
was addressing men who had once walked in the 
precepts of the gospel, but now, from the love of 
their wealth, walked in these ways no more. The 
rich, who are pampered all the days of their lives on 
earth, have all their hearts can wish, do as they 
choose and regard neither God nor man, will 
doubtless be very much surprised, when they go 
into eternity, to find that they are lost. 

Again we read, "And Jesus entered and passed 
through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man 
named Zaccheus, which was the chief among the 
publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see 
Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, 
because he was little of stature. And he ran before, 
and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him ; for 
he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came 
to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said 
unto him, Zaccheus, make haste and come down ; 
for to-day I must abide at thy house. And he made 
haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. 
And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, 
That he was gone to be guest with a man that is 
a sinner. And Zaccheus stood and said unto the 
Lord : Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to 
the poor ; and if I have taken anything from any 
man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. 
And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation 
come to this house, "j- 

* Heb. x., 28-31. f Luke xix, 1-0. 



234 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Zaccheus was rich ; but we are not permitted 
to think that he was a dishonest man or even a 
hard dealer ; for in this most solemn hour that 
had ever come to his soul, when he was elevated to 
the high plain of his new-found life, and knowing 
that he was standing in the presence of Him from 
Whom there is nothing hid, he says, "If I have 
taken anything from any man by false accusation, 
I restore him fourfold." His words plainly imply 
that if he had taken anything from anyone by false 
accusation, he did not know it. The inspired pen 
records it as if he were correct, or at least makes 
no comment on it, to give us any authority to infer 
he might be mistaken. 

No matter how honestly he came by his posses- 
sions and riches, Zaccheus felt it was inconsistent 
with the new life on which he was entering to keep 
the money, and that he would have to part with it ; 
and the only intimation that he kept the half, was 
that he was ready, if anyone came whom he un- 
wittingly had wronged, to restore him fourfold. 
When the grace of God enters a man's heart indeed, 
he cannot hold onto great sums of money, with the 
poor and needy around him and suffering on every 
hand. The kingdom of heaven which Jesus Christ 
came to set up is the kingdom of brotherly love ; 
and the first law of this kingdom is : "Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself." 

The question might arise, Would the Lord have 
required Zaccheus to give his goods to the poor 
if he had not proposed to do so himself? To answer 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 235 

this, let us turn to the tenth chapter of Mark and 
begin reading at the seventeenth verse, which is : 
" And when Jesus was gone forth into the way, 
there came one running, and kneeled to him, and 
asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may 
inherit eternal life? Jesus said unto him, Thou 
knowest the commandments, Do not commit adul- 
tery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false wit- 
ness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 
And he answered and said unto him, Master, all 
these have I observed from my youth. Then 
Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, 
One thing thou lackest : Go thy way, sell whatso- 
ever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
have treasure in heaven : and come, take up the 
cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that 
saying, and went away grieved : for he had great 
possessions."* 

Here is the history of another rich man in the 
presence of Jesus Christ, and he asks Him the ques- 
tion, "Good Master, what shall I do that I may in- 
herit eternal life?" The manner in which he came 
— running— denotes the greatest of anxiety. Kneel- 
ing before Jesus shows his humility. His question 
and manner of deportment would make any infer- 
ence that he was depending on his riches for salva- 
tion, or that he, like Naaman, wanted to do some 
great thing, by which he should be saved, as alto- 
gether illogical, and do violence to the sacred narra- 
tive. His whole manner gives us the most convinc- 

*Markx., 17-22. 



236 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ing evidence that he looked upon Jesus as the 
Messiah, the God-man, the one to be worshiped, 
and in whose hands were the keys to the knowl- 
edge of eternal life. Among all those who ever 
came to Christ, none ever came in a more suppliant 
manner, and none, not even the disciples, more 
clearly confessing the divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Further, none ever came to Christ who presented 
so clean a record and high a character as this young 
ruler. He had kept all the commandments, and 
Jesus put the seal on his claim as being an honest 
statement, and not an empty boast, by His love for 
him, and that love springing, apparently, out of 
this very statement. Notice that it was the last 
half of the decalogue which Jesus repeated to him, 
the half which refers to men on earth, and that He 
added an explanation which made the law especially 
apply to the rich, viz.: Defraud not; but even 
with this he was free from the law, and his life 
must have been as Paul's before his conversion, 
" Touching the righteousness which is in the law, 
blameless."* 

This is the only recorded instance where Jesus' 
love went out to a man who was in disobedience 
to the divine behests. And it was with a heart full 
of love towards the young ruler that He said, " One 
thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell whatsoever 
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven." The sincere, anxious and 
humble manner in which the young ruler came to 

*Phil. iii., 6. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 237 

Jesus merited a frank, fair and candid answer. 
None of all those who came to Christ ever were 
subjected to so severe an examination ; and why all 
this, unless it be to put it beyond a question that 
the young man was commanded to give his great 
possessions to the poor, for no moral defect in his 
character, except that he owned and held them. 
The Saviour answered the young ruler clearly, 
positively, and he had no doubt about the mean- 
ing of the answer, nor that his question was 
fully and fairly answered. The answer was 
that he could have salvation on the terms of 
selling all he had and giving it to the poor; that 
then, and not till then, could he join Jesus' follow- 
ers ; then, and not till he had done so, could he hope 
for heaven and its joys. He felt that the terms of 
salvation were too severe, and that he could not 
comply with them ; but was disappointed that he 
could not have heaven in view and keep his great 
possessions at the same time. So, he went away 
sorrowful. But even in this last scene of his life, 
his nobleness of character is revealed. He recog- 
nizes the righteousness of the decision, and,, 
without one murmuring word, goes away. How 
different from the scribes and Pharisees, who were 
always carping at Jesus' words and trying to catch 
Him in His talk. 

Doubtless there was no finer man in all Palestine, 
and it is a question if any in the world ever meas- 
ured higher in sweetness of deportment and loveli- 
ness of character than he. But one thing he lacked 



238 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

— he had great possessions, and he must sell them 
and give the proceeds to the poor, before he could 
be numbered among the children of the kingdom of 
heaven on earth. When that is done, said Jesus, 
" Come, take up the cross, and follow me." 

Who will dare to say that if this young ruler had 
gone and sold all he had and given it to the poor, in 
obedience to Jesus' command, he would not have 
had treasures in heaven, no matter if he had 
omitted all the conventional ways men have to 
show the world that they are followers of the 
great Jehovah. 

On the other hand, in the face of this plain, posi- 
tive narrative, by what authority, we ask, do men 
offer salvation to wealthy men, and admission to 
the Church, and almost deify them with the same 
patronizing sycophancy that the world does? 

Some cut the knot by saying that this young ruler 
was an exception and a special case, and the rule 
given to him is not applicable to men of great pos- 
sessions in general. If this is the case, there ought 
to be some evidence of it on the sacred page ; but 
there is not. How could anything be clearer 
than that the inspired writer's intention was to 
place before the world a man whose character 
would allow of no such interpretation, and to pre- 
sent it in such a way that he is, unquestionably, the 
peer of any man in his time, if not of any man the 
world ever had. The story is bound up, so that it 
would seem absolutely impossible to get any other 
conclusion from the narrative, save that the choice 






JESUS AND RICH MEN. 239 

was plainly between the young ruler holding his 
possessions and being lost, and his giving away his 
possessions to the poor and having treasures 
in heaven for evermore. And now, had this young 
ruler given away his possessions, at Jesus' com- 
mand, to the poor, would anyone doubt that he was 
a good man and in heaven to-day, for that obedience ; 
and it is equally true that he is not there, be 
cause he did not. 

The doctrine is sometimes preached that Jesus 
demanded the young ruler to give away his pos- 
sessions, because Jesus wanted his first affection and 
love. Also, the reason that He demanded him to 
give them away was on general principles, which 
would apply to the poor man's spade and the poor 
woman's washtub, all alike, and the doctrine 
taught here is that we must merely hold our prop- 
erty, ready to give it up at the Lord's command ; 
and if the rich man, by some indescribable imagi- 
nation, professes to hold his property in this manner, 
he may have never so much, yet is living in no 
violation of God's command. 

Now let us apply the rule to other commands of 
the Master. His plain command was, u Go and sell 
that thou hast, and give to the poor."* He said 
to the woman taken in adultery, " Go, and sin 
no more."f Shall we hold the doctrine that all 
He meant here was that the woman loved her sins 
more than she did Him,, and He wanted her first 
-affection ; and the doctrine as applied to us is not 

*Math. xix., 21. fjohn viii., 11. 



24O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

that we are to abstain from immoral conduct, but 
that while we indulge in adulteries, we must hold 
them all the time subject to the Lord's command, 
and ready to give them up if He says so? We 
must not worship immoralities, for it is the wor- 
ship of them that is the sin Aside from our senti- 
ments against immorality, this line of theology 
could be far more easily established against the 
woman taken in adultery, than with the young 
ruler. She showed no signs of a worshipful dispo- 
sition toward the Master, nor recognition of His 
divinity, as the young ruler did. In fact, there are 
stronger reasons why we should adopt this inter- 
pretation in her case than in the case of the young 
ruler. Her occupation was all her living, which 
Jesus demanded her to give up, and the young ruler 
was only commanded to give up his luxuries, and 
would have had as good a living after he had done 
as Jesus told him, as the common people. There is 
far more philanthropy and brotherly love in apply- 
ing this kind of theology to the poor, unfortunate 
girl, than to the rich man. When she is prosecuted 
and driven from her sins, she is an outcast, and sore 
poverty is her lot ; but when the wealth is taken 
away from the plutocrat, he is only relegated, from 
being a little god over men, to the common walks 
and life, of the best men in the world. The entire 
treatment of the woman and her accusers goes to 
show that there should be a world more of com- 
passion shown to her sinning than to the sins of the 
rich Pharisees who came to Him accusing her. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 24I 

Of course, Jesus demanded enough love from the 
young ruler to cause him to obey His command, 
and to go his way and sell all his possessions and 
give to the poor. The young ruler knew Jesus 
meant exactly what He said, and that no mere pre- 
tense or profession of holding his property at Jesus' 
will would fulfill the command. The truth is of 
general application, and any man who says he is 
holding his great wealth subject to Jesus, if sincere, 
will go his way, sell all he has and give to the 
poor, and then follow Jesus — a common man, like the 
young ruler would have been had he joined the 
number of Jesus' followers when on earth. 

Then think of a doctrine which represents Jesus 
as jealous of the young ruler's riches. Nothing 
could be farther from His modest, pure life. 
Jesus never asked a man to do anything for His 
personal glorification alone. Wherever He com- 
manded men to obey and worship Him, it was for 
the good of mankind, and to lift them up, by 
contact with Him, to purer lives of brotherly love 
and unselfishness. Not even His transcendent merits 
were once spoken of by Him, as worldly monarchs 
demand, for their own laudation ; but everything 
He did and said found its sweet effects in the good 
of men. He emptied Himself of Himself. His life 
was a life of service and for the good of men, " The 
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many."* He left it for men to recognize His 

*Matt. xx., 28. 



242 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

worthiness of honor and praise, and render to Him 
the tribute of affection, prompted freely by their 
own hearts. 

As soon as the young ruler was gone, it is said 
that " Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his 
disciples."* There must have been something 
remarkable in that look, to cause it to be 
recorded, and something more than historic curi- 
osity. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
correction, for instruction in righteousness."! As 
Jesus looked round about upon the disciples, He felt 
how hard it would be for them, and men of all ages, 
to see the wolf in sheep's clothing, with wool 
never so fine and so naturally fitting the body that 
it would be beyond the scrutiny of men to detect 
the hypocrite by the natural vision, and He knew 
how slow men would be to accept this divine 
truth and rule. So He emphasized His actions and 
former words, saying, "Verily I say unto you, That 
a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for 
a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for 
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When 
his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, 
saying, Who then can be saved?"]; As if they had 
thought, If that young ruler cannot be saved, who 
can? For he is the best man we know anything 
about, and we would not dare to say that we are 
as good ourselves. And the world ever since has 

*Ma>k x., 23. + 2 Tim. iii., 16. JMath. xix., 23-25. 






JESUS AND RICH MEN. 243 

sympathized with the disciples in that astonishment. 
Ministers and commentators have ever felt it nec- 
essary to explain away the clear statements of the 
sacred narrative and its only fair meaning, to pro- 
tect the Master's good reputation among men. 

" But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, 
With men this is impossible, but with God all 
things are possible."* Here is that look again of 
the Saviour. Never did the Saviour exhibit such 
solicitude and anxiety that He might be understood, 
which shows that He was inculcating a great truth, 
and one hard to be received. Surely, the history 
of the young ruler is no empty or isolated story, 
from the great trend of human affairs, that finds no 
counterpart to-day. The Bible relates not strange 
stories, but deals in representative men and repre- 
sentative acts, recorded not for our curiosity, but as 
our examples. When such tenderness is exhibited 
by the Saviour and recorded by the sacred narrator, 
does it not emphasize the fact that here is some- 
thing that will be hard for us to believe. But it is 
exceedingly important that we should heed the 
divine revelation, and understand that man's per- 
verted and depraved instincts may be expected to 
be against it, and that they will try to explain 
it away. 

" With men this is impossible;" that is, if there 
is such a thing as a rich man being saved, we have 
nothing to do with it ; we cannot even imagine 
how it is to be done, and it is a very clear state- 

*Math.xix., 26. 



244 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ment for us to let all the doctrine alone of the rich 
man being saved. This was very politely and 
tenderly put by the Master to His disciples, but 
equally as positive. 

In Mark's gospel, we find this additional verse 
that Matthew did not record : " But Jesus answer- 
eth again, and saith unto them, Children, how 
hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into 
the kingdom of God!"* This is the passage upon 
which the whole fabric is built of the theology 
teaching that the Saviour meant that the only sin in 
riches was the trusting in them. But the passage 
does not give relief, and if the Saviour had meant 
it so, He most signally failed; for, before He said 
this, it is recorded that " the disciples were aston- 
ished;" but immediately after He uttered it, we 
are told they v were astonished out of measure," 
for the very next sentence the Saviour spoke was : 
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the king- 
dom of God."f This statement of the Master puts 
the salvation of a rich man entirely out of the 
question. 

As we read the passage carefully, we see it is in 
the nature of a question. It reads : "Children, how 
hard is it (not how hard it is) for them that trust in 
riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" Then, 
if we turn to the Greek, we find the sentence should 
have the interrogation after it, instead of the 
exclamation point. The passage is a question 

* Mark x.. 24. f Mark x„ 25. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 245 

which the Saviour asked His disciples, as if chil- 
dren at school, and answered Himself, saying, "It is 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, 
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
God." Of course, with God all things are possible ; 
but there is not given us even the hope of the thief, 
in the record that God ever did so vouchsafe His 
potent power, or ever will. 

But even this plain statement men have tried to 
explain away. It is said the camel was the great 
cord, or rope, which the sailors threaded with much 
difficulty into the eye of the large needle which 
they used to tack the canvas together. Others 
said the needle's eye was the low wicket gate under 
the city's walls, which was so low the camel had 
to unload, get down on his knees and crawl through. 
So the rich man had to unload his riches; 
but men unwarrantedly add from his affections only, 
and so humbly go into the kingdom of God. Then 
all that is necessary for the rich man to do is to 
say, " It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by what- 
soever thou mightest be profited by me ; he shall be 
free. Making the word of God of none effect 
through your tradition, which ye have delivered ; 
and many such like things ye do."* But even mak- 
ing the wicket gate the needle's eye does not relieve 
the difficulty, for the man has to unload his riches 
to get into the kingdom of heaven, and he cannot 
follow out the habit of the camel ; that is, as soon 

*Mark vii., 11, 13. 



246 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

as he is inside, load them on again, without making 
the Saviour to talk nonsense. 

But the great difficulty with both the explana- 
tions is? they are possible with men, and the Saviour 
said, With men the salvation of the rich is an im- 
possibility. Of course, the great work of the regen- 
eration of any soul is beyond the comprehension of 
men ; but the fair meaning of the Saviour is that 
there is something more in trying to save 
a rich man, and this something more is beyond the 
ken of human knowledge and revelation. Then, 
had it been either of these, the disciples would not 
have been astonished out of measure, for they had 
doubtless helped to thread the great needle to tack 
the canvas together, and had seen the camel crawl 
through under the low gate. If we say Jesus meant 
the ordinary needle and the two-humped camel, 
and what He said was, You could easier drive a 
camel on the desert through a needle's eye than' a 
rich man could get into the kingdom of God ; 
then we see that He used a very strong figure of 
speech, and kept up the great line of truth He was 
teaching, namely, that it is impossible for a rich 
man to enter heaven. 

Lest we be considered as implying that there 
was intentional dishonesty on the part of the com- 
mentators in the extraordinary wit and genius 
shown in their attempts to screen the rich from the 
plain condemnations of the Saviour, and pry the 
doors of heaven open to them, we wish to say em- 
phatically that we do not impute bad motives to them 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 24/ 

by any means. A very different condition of things 
confronted them than does us now. The rich, 
so called, at the time the commentaries were 
written, were farmers, well-to-do merchants and 
tradesmen, and there were no poor save the shift- 
less, the lazy and the drunken. To admit that the 
blessed Master would condemn the former and com- 
pliment and save the latter was too revolting to the 
common sense of the clergy and scholars. We 
doubt not that they felt it their Christian duty to 
explain away these things which, upon the face of 
them, seemed not only to make the Master teacli 
foolishness, but actually teach a doctrine which 
seemed to inculcate vices, and was inimical to pros- 
perity. But we to-day are in the midst of the same 
condition of affairs that the people of Palestine were 
at the time of our Saviour. The great productive 
powers of nature then were held in the grasp of 
wealth as ours are now, and enforced crime and 
idleness wag in Palestine then, as it now is with 
us. 

We must notice that in all the history of rich 
men who stand out individually in the New 
Testament, there is not one word on the sacred 
pages to soil or contaminate their pure character,, 
yet Jesus pronounced condemnation on each 
one of them. As far as we can see, they were men 
who had a high moral standing, a clean moral char- 
acter and a name among the people of God at that 
day. Doubtless Jesus condemned immoral and 
openly profane rich men also, and indeed, we have the 



248 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

evidence in general characters that He did. Why 
none of them stand out individually on the sacred 
page is not without deep meaning. The meaning 
evidently is that the sin Jesus wished to show the 
world He was condemning so bitterly, and above all 
others, was not immorality, drunkenness or larceny, 
but the sin of great wealth. This is clear from the 
fact that there is not the smell of fire of any sin on 
the garments of these condemned men, save that of 
their riches. 

We have half a dozen plutocrats whose unneces- 
sary millions, or even their income for one year, 
would have purchased clothing and food enough 
to have relieved the entire sufferings of the Armen- 
ians during the last year. Added to this, the money 
expended would have taken up the oversupply of 
goods on our markets, which would have started 
our factories that now are idle ; farmers would have 
been enabled by the revival in the grain and meat 
trade to have paid the interest on their mortgages 
and perhaps reduced the mortgages, in consequence 
of their good acts, and prosperity would smile upon 
our land. 

These plutocrats could have felt a thousand times 
happier, but they would not so view it, and in fact, 
they were so blind in selfishness that they could not. 

Jesus asked His disciples, "How much then is a 
man better than a sheep?"* David, viewing the 
consideration and care which God seemed to be- 
stow upon man, said, "What is man, that thou art 

*Math. xii., 12. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 249 

mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou 
visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower 
than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory 
and honour?"* Aye, man is in the image of God, 
the former of the worlds and all that is. He is the 
heir apparent to the divine glories of heaven eter- 
nally. Shall man, so made, so inheriting, have no 
more care than a sheep, his life and happiness 
counted out against such corruptible things as gold 
and silver? How long, O Lord, how long shall these 
things be? 

Among the seven churches revealed to John on 
the Isle of Patmos, as representing the churches in 
the world, it was of the Church of Laodicea that 
God said, " I know thy works, that thou art neither 
cold nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. So 
then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold 
nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because 
thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, 
and have need of nothing, "j A wealthy Church 
of lukewarm members is the hardest problem that 
ever confronted the true minister of Jesus Christ. 
If they were outrageously wicked — drunkards, and 
a set of outlaws — he would know what to do ; but 
these lukewarm aristocrats, what can he do with 
them ? God says He will spew them out of His 
mouth. He would rather have a Church of desper- 
adoes than such men. Jesus, in His opening 
inaugural address, said, "Woe unto you that are 
rich! For ye have received your consolation."]; 

*Ps. viii., 4, 5. fRev. iii., 15-17. JLuke vi., 24-26. 



250 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

That is, they could expect none of the consolations 
of heaven, and the seeing of joy and peace, as He 
had promised to the poor. They had taken more than 
was theirs on earth, and that was enough to 
make them unworthy of heaven's society of broth- 
erly love. "Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall 
hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye 
shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you when all 
men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers 
to the false prophets." 

The rich are full now, but the time will come 
when they shall feel every gnawing in hell which 
their riches have caused the poor on earth to suffer. 
For every laugh and exultant joy they feel over 
their riches, they shall mourn and weep in hell. 
Job said, " If I rejoiced because my wealth was 
great, and because mine hand had gotten much, 
this also were an iniquity to be punished by the 
judge, for I should have denied the God that is 
above."* Our rich men may seem pious and good, 
and all men speak well of them ; so they did of the 
scribes and Pharisees, and never were men so 
highly rated for clear religious characters as they, 
and they who dogged the steps of Jesus, and cruci- 
fied the Redeemer, because His works were right- 
eous and theirs evil. Men never more rigidly 
observed all Church ecclesiasticisms than these, 
but Jesus' way is, " Judge not according to the 
appearance, but judge righteous judgment. "f These 

*Job xxxi., 25-28. ijohu vii., 24. 



JESUS AND RICH MEN. 251 

were they " which glory in appearance and not 
in heart."* 

" Jesus went into the temple and found those 
that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the chan- 
gers of money sitting ; and when he had made a 
scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the 
temple, and the sheep, and the oxen ; and poured 
out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables ; 
and said unto them that sold doves, Take these 
things hence ; make not my Father's house an 
house of merchandise."! "Is it not written, My 
house shall be called of all nations the house of 
prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. "£ 

From Jesus' first sermon up in Nazareth and His 
inaugural address on the mount, announcing His 
mission as brotherly love to the common people and 
blessings on the poor, His ministry was a rising 
climax of condemnation against the rich, and a 
gathering storm, till it burst in most terrific fury 
upon the heads of the scribes and Pharisees, in His 
last public address in the temple The quiet seren- 
ity of His mild, sweet deportment was never 
broken, except when He met the rich and attacked 
them for their lives of sin The two recorded great 
outbursts of His righteous indignation were both in 
the temple of God, and against those who claimed 
to be, and were recognized by the people as, the 
sons of God. " For the time is come that judgment 
must begin at the house of God."|| 

*2 Cor. v., 12 fjohnii., 14-16. |MarkxL, 17. §1 Peter iv t> 17. 



CHAPTER XVI, 




THE SCRIBES, THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES. 

HE Saviour's spirit of meekness and gentle- 
ness, in judging of others, and His absti- 
nence from the imputation of improper motives, was 
one of the most characteristic and original charms 
of His life and precepts. Though He met the 
drunkard staggering along the street and wayside, as 
we do now, there is not left us one harsh word that 
He uttered against him, nor a condemning sentence 
which fell from His lips. He met the harlot, and 
spoke to her words of hope and forgiveness. Her 
soul lit up with heaven's aspirations in His presence 
and she received peace and pardon at His hands. 

Yet, when He met the scribes, the Pharisees and 
the Sadducees, the deep fountain of heaven's wrath 
broke up and was poured out upon them. He de- 
nounced the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees in the 
bitterest language and with the most sweeping 
charges of being hypocrites and robbers, oppressors 
and vipers. His ministry was a warfare against 
them. He refused to offer them pardon and salva- 
tion. His entire teachings and attitude towards 
them were repellant and antagonistic. 

When John the Baptist, Jesus' forerunner, was 

252 



THE SCRIBES, PHARISEES, ETC. 253 

preaching at the Jordan in the wilderness, and his 
work had risen to take on large proportions, these 
Sadducees and Pharisees went down to the Jordan 
to look it over, while the scribes, zealous for the 
dogma that Jerusalem was the place where men 
ought to worship, did not go. The wide-awake 
dealers, the Sadducees and Pharisees, however, were 
not to be kept back from getting hold of a good 
thing by any religious scruples, so they went down 
to John's baptism. If there was money in it, or if 
it was going to give them popularity and a greater 
hold on the masses, they were going to have it. 
Such men will play pious, be smooth and sancti- 
monious as deacons, to succeed in business. But 
John cried to them, and said: "O generation of 
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath 
to come? "* Plainly implying that whoever had, it 
was a mistake, for their doom was already fixed be- 
yond the hope of mercy or pardon. He further 
told them : " Now also the axe is laid unto the 
root of the tree. Therefore, every tree which bring- 
eth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast 
into the fire."-]' They very well knew that he 
meant they were the evil trees, and doubtless went 
away offended, never to return. 

A correct knowledge, therefore, of these scribes, 
Pharisees and Sadducees, is of very great impor- 
tance in getting hold of the true genius of Chris- 
tianity. If we can define the grounds of Jesus 

* Math, iii., 7. f Math. iii. , 10 



254 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Christ's attack upon these men, we have laid open 
the master evil and the taproot sin in the world. 

The scribes were originally merely writers or 
copyists of the law, who followed this business for 
a mode of livelihood. In their anxiety to preserve 
the text of holy writ and guard it against any inter- 
polations or corruptions, they counted the letters of 
the Scriptures and classified every precept of the 
law. Their position and ability to read and write 
naturally brought them into the position of inter- 
preters and expounders of the Scriptures. They 
read the law before the people on stated occasions, 
they propounded the duties inculcated in the Scrip- 
tures to the people at large on the Sabbath, and 
instructed young men in the'Scriptures and theology 
in the colleges or seminaries on the week days. 
Their great reverence for the divine law, their ex- 
traordinary modesty and humility, as well as their 
fear lest any of their writings should be raised to 
the dignity of holy writ, prevented the scribes, or 
sophrim, from embodying their expositions and 
enactments in separate treatises. 

In time, this original modesty wore away. The 
office of the sophrim was elevated to doctor, and the 
scribes received large salaries for their position and 
profession. They taxed the poor heavily. We 
have an instance on the sacred page where they 
induced or compelled a poor widow to cast in all 
her living for their support. These doctors canon- 
ized the opinion of the scribes, which it was claimed 
had been transmitted orally. They elevated these 



THE SCRIBES, PHARISEES, ETC. 255 

sayings of the scribes, or the tradition of the elders, 
above the inspired word, and held it to be a greater 
offence and more punishable to violate them than to 
break high commandments of heaven. Jesus brought 
against tHem the charge, " Thus have ye made the 
commandment of God of none effect by your tradi- 
tion.'.'* Again, " And ye have not his word abiding 
in you."f They were intense lovers of Churchisms. 
Duty and service was lost sight of, and a selfish 
ambition controlled them. Piety and high integ- 
rity went for little or nothing. Brains and the 
ability to succeed overtopped every virtue and 
excused all selfish actions. If a man was outwardly 
moral, if he conformed to the rules and notions of 
society, the popular reform, no matter how extreme 
or wide from the real spirit of God's law, mercy, 
justice and love to God and man, they held him 
blameless. So Jesus' command to them was, 
"Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye 
have eternal life : and they are they which testify 
of me: 'I 

A priest must remain in obscurity unless he joined 
the order of the scribes. " They love the upper- 
most rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the 
synagogues. And greetings in the markets, and to 
be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. "§ They had the 
clerical degree of Rab 9 Rabbi and Rabban, corre- 
sponding in a measure to our D.D., L.L.D., Very 
Reverend, Right Reverend, Honorable, Judge. Sen- 
ator, etc. 

*Math. xv M 6. fjohn v., 38. $John v., 39. §Math. xxiii., 6, 7. 



256 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

But there were honest scribes ; men who would 
not permit themselves to be the tools of the rich 
and powerful to oppress the poor, neither would 
they use their position to take advantage of the 
weaker. Paul was a lawyer before his conversion 
and as touching the law was blameless. He must 
have been a large-hearted, honest attorney before 
his conversion, to develop into so self-sacrificing a 
hero for Jesus and His cause. Zenas was a good 
lawyer, or scribe, whom Paul wrote to Titus to 
bring with him in company with Apollos, when 
he came to him. The Saviour spoke of good 
scribes when He said, " Wherefore, behold, I send 
unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes : and 
some of them ye shall kill, and crucify; and some 
of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, 
and persecute them from city to city." It is 
recorded of Jesus 5 "The people were astonished at 
his doctrine : for he taught them as one having 
authority, and not as the scribes." 

The Sadducees were the irreligious, wealthy, 
aristocratic class of the Jews. The Sadducees and 
the Pharisees were the two great contending parties 
in the Jewish Theocracy at the time of Christ. 
The character which marked out and separated the 
Sadducees from the Pharisees was that the Sad- 
ducees rejected the authority of the tradition of 
the elders, they denied the immortality of the soul, 
future retribution, the existence of spirits or angels ; 
all they took account of, or had concern for, was 
the present life. They were sceptics, or atheists, or 



THE SCRIBES, PHARISEES, ETC. 257 

anything else which was not religious. They 
strove to secularize the Jewish religion. They 
sacrificed the national rights for the sake of a peace- 
ful possession of lucrative offices. ■ 

And now, who were the Pharisees? The Phari- 
sees were a sect or party among the Jews, who 
were so called from the Aramaic word, " Perishim," 
meaning separated. They were essentially the same 
as the Assideans, meaning godly men or saints, as 
spoken of in the Maccabees. Josephus, who lived 
just after Jesus Christ, and was a Pharisee himself, 
says, The Pharisees lived frugally, and were in no 
respect given to luxury. In the time of Christ, the 
Pharisees were very numerous, and were the most 
wealthy sect of the Jews. They had a majority in 
the Sanhedrim, and held almost supreme control of 
the country. They were proud, self-righteous, and 
held the common people in great disrespect. They 
were perfectionists, prohibitionists and men of 
unblemished moral character. They gave the tenth 
of all their income to the Lord, even of the garden 
truck — anise, mint and cummin. When the young 
ruler came to Christ, with a very reasonable assur- 
ance he asked, Good Master, what good thing shall 
I do, that I may have eternal life? When Jesus 
repeated to him the last half of the decalogue, he 
truthfully answered, All these things have I kept 
from my youth up ; what lack I yet ? And he and 
everybody supposed the answer would come, Well 
done, good and faithful servant. The Pharisee who 
stood and prayed, "God, I thank Thee that I am not 



258 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

as other men are, even as this poor publican,'* 
doubtless told the exact truth about himself, 
and doubtless there was not a man who knew him, 
even the best, who could bring aught against his 
clean character. Paul said of himself, before his 
conversion, that he was a "Pharisee of the Phari- 
sees, as touching the law blameless." 

But when Jesus met these reputable men, He con- 
fronted them with the sweeping charge that harlots 
and publicans would go into the kingdom of God 
before them. The publicans were the saloon- 
keepers at that time. He hurled against these re- 
ligious and wealthy men the most eloquent, the 
most terrible, the most appalling of all discourses 
ever delivered to mortals. The temple never rang 
with voice and words charged with such terror, 
such faithful reproof, such profound knowledge of 
the workings of hypocrisy, or such skill in the detec- 
tion of the concealment of sin, as when the sympa- 
thizing Jesus, the friend of sinners, uttered, against 
these leading members of the visible Church of the 
most high God, that which is recorded in the twenty- 
third chapter of Matthew's gospel. But this was 
the last of Jesus' public discourses, and He well knew 
that to so oppose these men would cost Him His 
life, and referred to it before He finished speaking, 
He also knew if He did not confront these men, or 
they di J not heed His warning and desist from their 
ways, they would bring such sorrow, ruin and dis- 
aster upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that 
language would be too weak to describe. But He 



THE SCRIBES, PHARISEES, ETC. 259 

knew they would not heed His words, and closed by 
telling them of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, 
saying, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate ! 
Oh, that ye had known this the day of your visita- 
tion ! Instead of listening to the admonition and 
heeding the warning of the God of heaven incar- 
nate, it only served to make them angry. Their 
wrath broke forth in wildest fury, and it was only 
a few days after this, that these scribes and Phari- 
sees were before Herod and Pilate demanding the 
blood and life of Jesus. Think of it ! The priests 
and elders of the visible Church of God demanding 
the life, and crying for the blood, of the Son of God, 
while a non-professing and heathen judge pleads 
for His innocence and begs for His safety and 
release ! 

Pilate doubtless looked upon these men as reli- 
gious, and, consequently, took them to be honest. So 
he stated to them that, upon the authority of his 
office, he had thoroughly examined Jesus, and found 
no fault in Him at all. Then, with Roman strat- 
egy, he decided to give them the choice between 
Jesus and Barabbas, who was a robber, thinking 
that his. diplomacy left them without any choice 
whatever ; for they, being honest and religious men, 
would have to let the innocent Jesus go and could 
not ask the release of the robber. But, as many a 
one since, who has put confidence in a man be- 
cause he stood high officially in the Church, has 
found, when these men see there is great gain in 
dishonesty and wickedness, under heavy pressure, 



260 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the cloak of profession is rent from top to bot- 
tom and the hypocrite exposed. So Pilate was, no 
doubt, greatly surprised to find the men still crying 
out, Crucify Him, crucify Him, and, to his greater 
astonishment, adding, and let Barabbas go. Pilate 
shouted out in his surprise : Why, what evil has 
He done? But his voice was drowned in the 
clamor. Crucify Him, crucify Him, and Pilate 
could argue it no further with them. Pilate, evi- 
dently thinking : If these men have no consciences, 
I have ; I am afraid to be one of them, and, being 
nervous, excitable and bewildered, took a basin of 
water and began to wash his hands. The strange 
conduct arrested the crowd's attention, and, when 
the noise of their clamor had died down a little, 
then Pilate again shouted out : See ye to it ; I am 
innocent of this just man's blood. Undauntedly 
they answer : Let His blood be on us and on our 
children. It were bad enough to defy the judg- 
ments of heaven and bid them come upon them- 
selves ; but what unbridled madness to invite the 
curse upon their children. There is very ancient 
and high authority for the statement that when an 
elder or a deacon of the Church goes into dishonest 
dealings, he breaks the record of all non-professors, 
infidels and atheists. So these men demanded the 
release, and obtained it, of a highway robber, and 
crucified Jesus, the hope of Israel, the son of David. 
It is a fact that Jesus Christ was not crucified ly a 
band of toughs, nor by harlots, nor by a drunken 
mob, nor by a set of infidels, nor by the common 



THE SCRIBES, PHARISEES, ETC. 261 

people, but by the wealthy aristocrats of the 
Church and society. If it be said that John the 
Baptist was beheaded because he reproved lust, it 
may be answered that it was lust in high places, and 
not of the poor ; and it is equally true that Jesus 
Christ was crucified because He reproved the 
wealthy Churchmembers and other wealthy men for 
their sins of money-getting and holding. James 
closes his strictures against the rich by saying, as 
the climax of his charge, " Ye have condemned and 
killed the just ; and he doth not resist you." 

Now, what made the Lamb of God, the mild and 
tender, sympathizing Jesus, to whom women 
brought their little children that He might put His 
hands upon them and bless them, so attack, so 
scourge and so condemn these leading men of 
Jehovah's chosen people? What sin were they 
guilty of that called forth words so scathing or epi- 
thets so ignominious and opprobrious? What sin 
was these learned scribes and wealthy Pharisees 
entertaining in their hearts, which made them so 
blind they could not recognize their promised 
and anxiously long-looked-for Messiah, when the 
common people and the harlots and saloon-keepers 
acknowledged His divinity ; when Pilate's wife 
sent word to her husband, the morning before the 
crucifixion, Have nothing to do with that just man ; 
when Judas brought back the money and said, I 
have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent 
blood ; when even the devils who met Him cried 
out, I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of 



262 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

God? What sin was it which held men so su- 
premely in its grasp that when they were reproved by 
the tender, divine lips of Jesus, they heeded it not, 
but were stirred up to wrath which nothing short 
of the blood of the Son of God and the sacrifice of 
His life would satisfy? If we define and expose 
the sin, or this power to make men sin, we have the 
devil's master-key or combination with which he 
unlocks the human heart to its inmost cell and robs 
a man of all that is godly and good, and makes him 
thoroughly depraved, wicked, devilish, and beyond 
the reach of hope or God's mercy. Here is the sin 
of all sins ; sin in its deepest dye, and the opposite 
virtue is the cardinal element of a true Christian 
life. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE GREATEST SIN AND GREATEST SINNERS. 

)N order that we may find out what the Master 
regarded as the greatest sin, and who are the 
greatest sinners, let us approach the question without 
prejudice, and, as little children, follow His teach- 
ings ; that we may enter into the kingdom of truth and 
more fully recognize the kingdom of heaven which 
He came to establish and set up on earth. 

In the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, we find 
the most extended, specific and severe of all the 
recorded denunciations by our Saviour, of men. 
He rolled over the guilty heads of the scribes and 
Pharisees, crash on crash, the thunder of His utter 
condemnations. 

In this chapter, we notice there is no mention 
made of the Sadducees. The reason probably in 
part is, the address being delivered in the temple, 
they were not present. But the Sadducees were 
wealthy and oppressed the poor equally with the 
Pharisees. On other occasions, Jesus classed the 
Sadducees with the Pharisees and condemned them 
alike, and warned His disciples to beware of the 
leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees. Another 

263 



264 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

reason for the omission of the Sadducees here is 
that they wore the cloak of honest men and good 
citizens, while the scribes and Pharisees wore the 
cloak of religion, to cover up their selfishness and 
under which to practice their oppressions. 

Nothing in the Saviour's utterances nor in litera- 
ture surpasses or equals in condemnation His 
denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, as recorded 
in this chapter. Further, this chapter, containing 
the events which were the immediate cause of 
the crucifixion and death of our Redeemer, fills 
not only an important place in revelation, but 
must be an essential part of the polity of Christian- 
ity. Its features are too prominent, its character 
too emphatic and unique, and the consequences 
following it too great, to pass it over in silence or 
explain away or minify its teachings. 

No real good has ever come from going to the 
Scriptures with preconceived ideas and theories, 
picking out isolated passages to establish them and 
explaining away the plain meaning of others, 
merely because they do not suit our tooth and humor. 
What the Scriptures do say and what the Scrip- 
tures teach is the only safe guide men have to 
follow. 

Some have ventured to account for the remarka- 
ble severity of the tone of this chapter by saying that 
it was a burst of undignified disappointment and 
unreasonable wrath. Yet is sin never to be rebuked ? 
Is hypocrisy never to be unmasked? Is moral 
indignation no necessary part of the noble soul? Is 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 265 

there no time in human affairs when love would 
play her part in vain, and justice must leap upon 
the stage of action ? There is no love in cowardice, 
and where heroism is demanded, cowardice is of 
all things the most contemptible. 

Terrible as the words of this chapter may seem, 
they are not words of vindictive, ill-timed wrath or 
heated rage, but they are the cool, calm, well- 
aimed artillery at the strongest ramparts of sin, by 
the omniscient, omnipotent hands of God, dic- 
tated by justice and holy, self-sacrificing love for 
those who were oppressed and unable to defend 
themselves from wrong. Jesus' doctrine of unity, 
and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human 
family, came in sharp contrast with the narrow 
bigotry of the Jews, who held that they were 
righteous, and despised others. This was the secret 
of the constant carping against Him, and in this 
chapter their sins at length are laid open as no- 
where else. 

The chapter opens with the Saviour giving His 
disciples a description of the scribes and Pharisees, 
saying, " The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 
seat : all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe 
that observe and do ; but do not ye after their 
works, for they say, and do not. For they bind 
heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay 
them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will 
not move them with one of their fingers. But all 
their works they do for to be seen of men ; they 
make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the 



266 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

borders of their garments, and love the uppermost 
rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the syna- 
gogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be 
called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi." 

Their commandments must have been primarily, 
and in the main, wholesome, or Jesus would not 
have enjoined upon His disciples obedience to them. 
But while the scribes and Pharisees were good at 
giving advice and wholesome instruction to the 
poor, they did not do as they taught. They ex- 
pounded the law to be heard of men and to catch 
the ears of the influential and wealthy. Their 
reputation and the holding of their positions, re- 
gardless of truth and the souls of men who were 
committed to their care, was what determined their 
actions and words. Their aim was to be popular, 
hold good positions in the Church and state, be. 
great men, wear fine, gaudy clothing, instead of a 
life of trust and service to their fellow-men ; and 
this they did while they sat in Moses' seat, the 
meekest and most unselfish of the fathers. To all 
this the Saviour gave the antidote, " But whoso- 
ever will be great among you, let him be your min- 
ister ; and whosoever will be chief among you, let 
him be your servant : even as the Son of man 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
to give his life a ransom for many." 

They covered up all their selfishness, self-serving 
pride and vanity, with a profession of religion > 
which constituted and made them hypocrites. By 
the way, the certain ear-mark of the hypocritical 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 267 

Pharisee or Sadducee is that all he does is to be seen 
of men. You may depend upon it that these men 
will give where it will be heard of and appreciated 
by the popular class of people. The dark alleys 
and lanes, where there is no one to sound the 
trumpet of their alms-giving, will witness very 
little, if any, of their beneficence. 

At this point, the Saviour turned from talking to 
His disciples and spoke directly to the scribes and 
Pharisees, saying: "Woe unto you, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites ! For ye shut up the king- 
dom of heaven against men : for ye neither go in 
yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering 
to go in." 

The kingdom of heaven referred to here is evi- 
dently the kingdom of heaven, or brotherly love, 
which John announced that Jesus would set up on 
the earth. The scribes and Pharisees were. men of 
influence and of trust. By their selfish conduct 
they caused many others, in imitation of them, to 
lead lives of selfishness, too. They taxed the people, 
laying heavy burdens upon men's shoulders griev- 
ous to be borne, while they dodged the taxes and 
did not pay the part of them which would corre- 
spond to the touching of them with their little fin- 
ger. Standing in the place of God and in the name 
of law, they grasped and held under their control 
the productive powers of Palestine ; they made life 
hard for the poor, and drove them into sin and sin- 
ning while earning their daily bread and clothing, 
when God had made Palestine to flow with milk 



268 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and honey. These men stood as the ostensible 
exponents of God, the Jehovah, while their lives 
were such that the inner conscience within the poor 
told them that these men could not be of the true God, 
and so they inferred that the temple was not the 
house of the Great and Holy One. There was 
naught left for the common people but to turn their 
backs on the temple of Jehovah, and they were as 
sheep scattered abroad on the fields of sin, having 
no shepherd. 

The inconsistencies of the professed followers of 
Jesus Christ have done His cause a hundred times 
more harm than all the infidels, atheists and agnos- 
tics combined. They not only do not go in them- 
selves, but they shut up the kingdom of heaven 
against those who would have entered in, had it 
not been for them. 

Jesus further says : " Woe unto you, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour widows' 
houses, and for a pretense make long prayers : 
therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." 

The scribes and Pharisees robbed widows' houses, 
which evidently refers to all kinds of oppression of 
the poor and lowly, and this they did under law 
and under the cover of religion also. This would 
not have been possible had they not practically 
pushed the Bible aside with their teaching for doc- 
trine the commandments of men. Their robbery 
was not only unreproved by law, but sanctioned, 
and, what is more, by their religion, and they cov- 
ered up their deceit from the eyes of men by their 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 269 

long prayers. In their prayers, they confessed the 
superiority of God over them, while they obeyed 
only the selfish emotions of their hearts. But there 
is no pretense in the hypocrite which looks so much 
like true religion as prayer, and from its sacredness, 
few would dare to criticise, challenge or suspect. 
Their prayers looked indeed like worship, and 
everybody thought they were worship, for there is 
no cloak so finely woven and divinely fitting, that 
the hypocrite can put on, as the cloak of prayer. 
Therefore, they shall receive the greater damnation. 

" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites ! for ye compass sea and land to make one 
proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make him two- 
fold more the child of hell than yourselves." 

To be made twice as bad as the scribes and Phari- 
sees in the sight of God would be quite impossible. 
So it must be that they were made to be apparently 
more heartless in their exactions from those under 
their power and more rude and offensive in their 
manner of executing it. 

Wealthy men who have a polished, sleek way of 
doing things, employ others to carry out their cruel 
plans and do their wicked work for them. And it 
is a fact that these men, in the employ of the 
wealthy, though poor themselves, will often treat 
their fellow-poor more cruelly than the plutocrat 
himself would dare to do, will be more outspoken 
and take stronger grounds in the defence of excus- 
ing the greed and selfishness of the plutocrat, than 
he himself would risk his reputation in doing. 



27O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Young men come in from the farms, who have 
been taught by their fathers that honesty is to be 
sought above all things and the house of God is the 
sure anchorage for a young man's safety. The 
young men go to church, see the leaders in the 
Church, and then watch them in the transaction of 
their business during the week; they see their 
greed, deceit, overreaching, in fact, downright dis- 
honesty, and come to the conclusion that the hon- 
esty of their fathers is old-fashioned and countrified. 
They came to the city to keep up with the city life. 
They have been taught that they will be in the right 
path so long as they follow the leaders of the 
Church. They listen to sermons from prominent 
clergymen, who are zealous to have a large follow- 
ing and be popular with all men. These sermons 
are sometimes on the prominent men of our day 
and how they came by success. They tell the 
congregation that most of these men respect the 
Church, and some of the most successful and 
wealthy are among the leaders of our Churches, re- 
putedly benevolent. The inference is fairly drawn 
that these wealthy men are aided by their attach- 
ment or relation to the Church, and that this rela- 
tion is praiseworthy and blessed of God. These 
young men have been taught by their mothers to 
heed the words of him who stands at the sacred 
desk. But they know all fortunes are the result of 
large deceit, intense selfishness, overreaching and 
often sleek lying. The examples of professed 
Christians they have before them are men not with 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 27 1 

the integrity of their fathers, but men who make 
dollars where their fathers made cents. Their 
young hearts, on fire with the ambition of youth, 
desire to succeed. They lay aside their father's 
idea of integrity, divorce themselves from their 
mother's prayers, plunge into the stream of busi- 
ness, lay conscience away, ignore brotherly love as 
a thing a successful man must steel his heart 
against, and so go on, till they become twofold 
more the child of hell than those who led them 
astray. 

" Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, 
Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing ; 
but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the tem- 
ple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for 
whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that 
sanctifieth the gold?" 

There is no intimation in sacred writ why the 
scribes and Pharisees made this distinction between 
the temple and the gold of the temple, and the 
commentators do not seem to know either. This 
much is true, however : they showed their ardent 
love for gold, not only gold as a synonym for great 
wealth, but also gold itself. Gold always has been 
and is the wealthy man's money. Gold certificates 
are issued in large denominations ; the poor seldom 
see them and very seldom, if ever at all, own them. 
Gold and the money power seem linked together. 
Gold seems to have a kingly power over money- 
loving men. Gold is the synonym of wealth, 
greatness and power, as it is the king of all metals, 



272 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and is now made the measure of value. It is not 
improbable that these scribes and Pharisees had 
this same instinctive love for gold, and their affec- 
tion became so strong that it turned into the worship 
of it. It is worthy of more than a passing notice 
that Jesus Christ was sold in His betrayal for thirty 
pieces of silver, and not gold. Silver is the money 
of the poor or common people. They see it. They 
own it. When it is plentiful, they have good times, 
and when it is scarce, the times have been and are 
hard. Jesus being the poor and common people's 
friend, it was appropriate that He should be sold 
for silver, and not gold. However, in His death, He 
made His grave with the rich, for the power of that 
death and the merits of the blood shed on Calvary 
shall triumph over the powers of wealth and money, 
and lay the giant of selfishness low at the feet of 
brotherly love and good- will to all men. 

The Saviour immediately adds, "Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe 
of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted 
the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy 
and faith : these ought ye to have done, and not 
to leave the other undone." 

The ancient Pharisee gave the tenth of all his 
income to the Lord, according to the law of Moses. 
He prayed three times a day, morning, noon and 
night. If he thought his voice was not strong 
enough to be heard over a sufficiently large circle 
of people, he took a trumpet and sounded it out, so 
that no sinner in all Jerusalem might fail to know 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 273 

that he was one who lived up to all the rules the 
Church or society required of a Church member- 
He was never ashamed for it to be known that he 
was a son of Abraham, and that he worshiped the: 
God of Abraham and of Isaac and Jacob. In all! 
this they appeared very sincere, devout and honesty 
as worship was conducted in those days ; but they,, 
in fact, did it only to be see of men. 

It was right for them to give the tenth of their 
income to the Lord, and to acknowledge Him in> 
public worship ; but they omitted the weightier 
matters of the law, mercy, justice and faith in God y 
and their only motive was selfishness. 

The modern Pharisee omits the trumpet and 
ostentation and show of his religion, for that 
would condemn him at once ; but quietly and with 
an assumed modesty outwits the ancient Phar- 
isee, in that, while he gives only from one, two or 
three per cent, of his income, the press and clergy 
blow the trumpet for him. Suppose the wealthy peo- 
ple of our Churches would determine to give the tenth 
of their incomes to the Church ; the news would 
be sounded from Maine to California, from the 
lakes to the gulf, that these wealthy men had their 
pocketbooks converted as well as their hearts. 

"Ye blind guides," Jesus farther says, "which, 
strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." They scru- 
pulously, conscientiously observed all the formalities 
of a religious life, as the society of that day de- 
manded, but they lived in disregard of the great 
law of brotherly love. They strained at little things,. 



274 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

while they swallowed the greatest of all sins, 
selfishness, which led them to wrest from the 
avenues of trade the powers of the country, and 
left the common people in poverty and many of 
them beggars. 

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites!" Jesus continues, "for you make clean 
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within 
they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind 
Pharisee ! cleanse first that which is within the cup 
and platter, that the outside of them may be clean 
also." The outward deportment of the Pharisee 
must have been considered all right, and he doubt- 
less was looked upon as a model for that day. 
There was no appearance of ostentation and show 
of religious worship to the men of his time in his 
trumpet and long prayers ; but they were probably 
looked upon as high devotion and merit, or the Sav- 
iour would not have said that they made the outside 
of the cup and platter clean. Their extortion and 
excess was a revelation to the men of that day. 
The people thought the Pharisees had a right to 
all they had, for they had gotten it without violating 
either the laws of the state or of society, so far as 
the people knew. Then it seemed they did so much 
good with their money. They gave the tenth to 
the Lord, and they were such an important factor 
both in the Church and state, that it seemed they 
could not get along without them. They surely 
had a right to the money and wealth they got, and 
anybody who had sense enough and the chance to 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 275 

do the same thing, would have done it, and the 
Saviour seemed to be entirely out of place in His 
denunciations. But it is not a fact that riches are 
the product of superior talents in him who becomes 
wealthy over him who does not, neither are they 
altogether the result of exceptional opportunities, 
which only come to the rich. Of course, there are 
such things as great opportunities coming to some 
men which do not cross the path of all. But for- 
tune, as a rule, comes to him who has a strong nature 
and whose soul is a loadstone charged with the 
magnetic power of selfishness, drawing every dol- 
lar toward him that comes within his influence, 
and never letting a dollar leave him, unless there is 
a mortgage on it, and pledged to return, bringing 
another back with it. 

Every vantage-ground gained in fortune-making 
lifts a man to an elevation where new opportunities 
rise before his vision and multiply, while it also 
gives him the power to command and cultivate his 
increasing privileges. Men of greater talents, 
but higher honor and greater brotherly love, because 
they consider the welfare of others, never get the 
start in the way of money-making, and so it is true 
that the great opportunities, which made the rich 
man richer, never come to them. They live and die 
with nothing more than a competency, but they 
have kind hearts, and the world is no less happy, 
but better, for their living in it. 

Our Saviour's condemnation against sinners rose 
to its zenith when He said, " Woe unto you, scribes 



276 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye are like unto 
whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful 
outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, 
and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly 
appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full 
of hypocrisy and iniquity." 

What is purer than marble? It is odorless and 
tasteless, and polishes without sign of scratch or 
blemish. With it we mark the final resting-place 
of our dead, as the emblem of the purity in which 
we hold their sacred memory, and upon it we write 
their names and inscribe their virtues. 

Had these men been violators of the law, or 
in any way crooked in their dealings, Jesus never 
could have likened them to whited sepulchers, 
which indeed appear beautiful. Whited sepulchers 
would seem to be enough to represent the spotless* 
character of any man, but when He adds, which 
indeed appear beautiful, He puts it beyond a doubt 
that there was no blemish of wrong-dealing or im- 
morality in the character of the scribes and Pharisees 
in the eyes of the people of their day. Doubtless, 
when a man dealt with them, he got what was 
coming to him by law, even to the last penny. 

The Pharisee had not a hard face, nor the con- 
duct nor reputation of a miser, money-shark, or 
oppressor of the poor. His demeanor, or face, so 
far as he could control it, was that of a model man. 
He was one with a smooth outside, playing the 
role of an honest, generous man, while he was 
selfish and dishonest at heart. To all that human 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 277 

eye could see, there was nothing which would call 
for criticism, but a great deal which would natu- 
rally enlist commendation and praise. 

Had their language been threatening and their 
countenance hard, their appearance, it is true, 
would have been more repulsive, but they would 
have had the virtue of being consistent. The out- ; 
side would have been a correct index of what was 
within, and not a snare, a delusion, and a lie. The 
sleek man is much the more dangerous. When an 
honest, generous-appearing outside covers up selfish- 
ness and insincerity, whether on a professor of reli- 
gion or not, his outside is a lie ; but when this out- 
side is in the appearance of religion, the deception is 
in the worst form, and the higher the polish, the 
more damning the influence on mankind. This 
was the character of the scribes and Pharisees. He 
who sees the hearts of men said their hearts were 
as if filled with dead men's bones and all unclean- 
ness. The stench of human decaying flesh is surely 
bad enough, but when to it is added "and all un- 
cleanness," it is beyond a question that the sin of 
these men was the worst of all sins, and they 
were of all men the worst sinners. The sin is the 
gaining and holding of great wealth, and doing it 
under the cloak of Christianity, which is brotherly 
love. The sin of the selfishness of wealth is bad 
enough, but when the livery of heaven is stolen to 
cover it up, it is sin in its deepest dye ; for it is 
wearing the kingly garments of heaven to de- 



2J$ JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

ceive the people and better serve the devil and 
hell. 

The world, by unanimous consent, gives the ver- 
dict that honesty and religion go together. No 
matter how often men may be fooled and deceived 
by hypocrites, nevertheless, they will, like Pilate, 
think those standing high in the Church can be 
trusted to do the right thing. It is readily seen 
there is no combination in human nature so well 
adapted to fortune-making as a strong, selfish na- 
ture, nicely covered up under a profession of reli- 
gion. In these days of the great opening resources 
of nature's productive powers, there are large facili- 
ties for fortune-gathering, and men of good reputa- 
tion, by taking advantage of the confidence which 
is accorded to them, through insincerity, falsehood 
and deception in dealing, can run up to fortune like 
magic. It seems men will not divorce religion from 
all that is lovely, generous, kind and honest. There 
is nothing which has so strong a hold on the human 
heart as the idea of the purity of religion, and re- 
spect for those seeming to possess it is an inevitable 
consequence. 

The disciples had often been annoyed with Jesus 
attacking and condemning the scribes and Phari- 
sees ; but when it came to this last discourse and 
sweeping charge made against them in the temple, 
the disciples were doubtless dazed and astonished 
out of measure. The hour had come when, if they 
held to their Master, they must part from the hon- 
ored leaders of the Church who sat in Moses' seat, 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 279 

and through whom they had been taught to wor- 
ship God. And we need not be surprised, after this y 
to read that when the mob seized Him and 
carried Him away, the disciples all forsook 
Him and fled. It is hardly possible to see how 
these disciples could help wondering if their Master 
had not lost His temper when so attacking these 
men, and they must have felt He was acting impru- 
dently, and needlessly endangering His own life 
and theirs. Jesus died, the object of the wrath of 
the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the 
contempt of the nation, denied and deserted by His 
own disciples. 

There is a singular touch in the history, of Joseph 
of Arimathea, who was rich, coming to Pilate and 
craving the body of Jesus, while the disciples, 
all forsook the lifeless form and fled. The senti- 
ment probably was overwhelming in Jerusalem 
that Jesus' conduct in so condemning these scribes 
and Pharisees was not only imprudent and in bad- 
taste, but was wild, fanatical, uncalled-for, and 
many considered He had brought His own death, 
upon Himself, and it was a righteous condemnation.. 
Joseph's better sentiment of honor and brotherly 
feeling had not yet been destroyed by selfishness,, 
and he could still feel the divine pulse of love for 
truth. He had been behind the screen of business- 
affairs, and knew the make-up of the wealthy 
Pharisees, the pride and the insincerity of the 
scribes, and he knew that Jesus was right in His, 



cSo JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

condemnations of them, and that it was for envy 
that they crucified Him. 

Shakespeare, in his "Merchant of Venice," 
makes Shylock hard-hearted in demanding the 
pound of flesh, and Edwin Booth rightly repre- 
sented him with a harsh voice and a hard face. 
Neither of these are to blame, for this has always 
been the world's conception of the oppressor by 
money of the poor and weak Even with the 
twenty-third chapter of Matthew before us, our 
artists have painted the face of the Pharisee with 
hard lines, showing his greed. 

It was left for Jesus alone to reveal the fact that 
the man with a sweet countenance and pious ways 
may be selfish, greedy and grasping at heart ; that 
an outward religious appearance, which bespeaks 
everything that is pure, honest, generous, kind and 
trustworthy, may have hidden under it and covered 
up, iniquity in the dark. The lesson has been so 
hard for the world to learn, that eighteen hundred 
years have passed away and we have not yet fully 
grasped the thought and comprehended the Master's 
apparent great paradox among men. 

And though we are confronted to-day with the 
same kind of men, and the masses suffering more or 
less from their aggressions, and all are threatened, 
yet we hesitate to accept the only conclusion that can 
be drawn from the Saviour's words and conduct, 
namely, that selfishness is the taproot sin in the 
world, and he who is controlled by selfishness and 
acts under a profession of brotherly love or Chris- 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 281 

tianity, is the greatest sinner among men, and is a 
contradiction of all that is godlike in humanity. 

With all Jesus' own plain exposition of this fact, 
men outside the Church wonder if Christianity can 
be the true religion, while such hypocrites are in 
the Church. Further, and on the other side, the 
people and ministers fear to attack men whose 
moral characters are clean, men clean before the 
law of the land and society, no matter how great 
the evidence of their selfishness and greed is in 
holding needless thousands and grasping for more, 
while hundreds starve and suffer for want of this 
same power of money. 

The great fundamental law of heaven and the 
law for earth is brotherly love. There is no in- 
fluence so destructive to good morals as selfishness, 
gathering in wealth and covering up its workings 
with a profession of Christianity. Selfishness 
strikes the heart of all which we hope for in the 
millennium. 

The influence of these Pharisees is to break the 
great law of belief in Christianity and even religion 
itself, and to destroy all confidence and trust in 
humanity by their deception. The more honest a 
man is, the more childlike his trust and faith in 
God and his Redeemer. The more simple and 
childlike a man's belief in God and Jesus Christ, 
the less suspicious he is apt to be of his fellow- men, 
and especially of those who are of the household of 
faith ; .but when such a one is deceived, and by one 
whom he trusted as having the image of God on 



282 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

his forehead, his faith is worse shattered and the 
wreck of his confidence is the greatest of all men. 

In the wake of every great fortune made or held, 
especially by professors of Christianity, if the whole 
truth were known as it is to God, there is not only 
poverty, but a wrecking of confidence, both in 
Christianity and in humanity. These wrecked men 
turn upon others as if to assuage their own wrongs, 
deceive, defraud and imitate the sleek hypocrites 
who made them to sin, become twofold more the 
child of hell, and a cause to make others sin. Woe 
unto you that are rich ! The rich cause men to sin. 
They stand in high places and send out large cir- 
cles of influence that leaven every part of society 
and the business world with selfishness and de- 
ceit. 

Business is fast approaching the law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest, or in other words, the customs 
and habits of the pre-Adamic animals, according to 
Darwin ; and of all these modern destructive crea- 
tures, the whited sepulcher is the king of beasts, 
lying in the ambush of Christianity or brotherly 
love, on the elevation of wealth and power, sending 
out befooled religious men and women as jackals to 
run in his prey. 

"Brethren, we have been called unto liberty ; only 
use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by 
love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled 
in one word, even in this : Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one 
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 283 

another." Confidence among men is the bond 
which holds society together and makes commerce 
possible. As the earth is held together by the law 
of gravitation and attraction, and were this law 
suspended, would fly into a thousand fragments, 
as asteroids, so society, where confidence is not, is a 
disintegrated mass. The more intelligent the peo- 
ple, the more active the repellant forces and the 
more destructive they will be. The power of 
knowledge, if confidence is gone, will only be a 
power to destroy. While the masses are blinded 
in ignorance and sunken in debauchery, and their 
attention taken up with their vices, they may never 
learn their rights, nor know their wrongs, nor resist 
their oppressors. But a free government is a gov- 
ernment by the people, and for the people. Such a 
government is possible only where there is universal 
intelligence, where confidence is general, and the 
wealth of the nation is in the hands of the people. 
Confidence can be only where there is brotherly 
love, and the wealth of the land will stay in the 
hands of the people only where there is brotherly 
love. The safety of a free and happy people is 
brotherly love. And no wonder the Son of God, 
Who had our best interests at heart as no one else 
ever had, boldly and strongly denounced these self- 
ish men, whose lives were a menace to happiness, 
peace and prosperity 

The Hebrew nation came from the loins of 
slavery and oppression. The scribes and Pharisees 
were bitter in their denunciations of the oppressors 



284 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAX. 

of the poor Hebrew slaves, their forefathers two 
thousand years before, while they themselves were 
equally as hard task-masters of their own brethren. 
The Pharisees were also loud in their praises of the 
prophets, who without exception had denounced 
the oppression of the poor by the wealthy and strong, 
and stoutly condemned the men who stoned and put 
them to death for their reproof. Sc it is that the Phar- 
isees in one generation always condemn their prede- 
cessors in the generations before them. Their cloak 
of profession calls them to honor and give their ap- 
proval to those who have exposed and condemned 
their own lives and conduct in the generations that 
have gone before. Jesus said, "Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye build 
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sep- 
ulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in 
the days of our fathers, we would not have been 
partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that 
ye are the children of them which killed the 
prophets." 

History repeats itself. Human nature in all gen- 
erations obeys certain great laws. Yet it would 
seem almost like a wicked attack on the Church to- 
day to apply Jesus Christ's own rule and words, 
and say that many men who are now helping to 
build our fine churches and giving magnificent sums 
of money to colleges, are the children of the scribes 
and Pharisees in the days of our Saviour. How 
these men would disclaim the imputation that if 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 285 

they had lived in the days of Christ, they would 
have joined the crowd to carp at Jesus' words and 
clamor for His condemnation and crucifixion. 
There is no sin so blinding, both to its possessor 
and others, and which is so impatient with reproof 
or warning, and will brook no check or guidance, 
as the pride and selfishness which wealth and power 
engender. But in all this they would only be wit- 
nesses unto themselves that they are the children of 
them who condemned and crucified the Lord of 
glory. 

When the Saviour saw the cloud of anger gather- 
ing on the faces of the scribes and Pharisees, as He 
spoke, and heard their maddened retorts, He said 
to them : " Fill ye up then the measure of your 
fathers ; " and then, in bitterness of soul, with the 
keenest words, exclaimed : " Ye serpents, ye gen- 
eration of vipers, how can ye escape the damna- 
tion of hell?" Even He, when there was no 
one to pity and none mighty to save, Whose arm 
brought salvation and contrived the way of salva- 
tion for sinning and sinful men, could think of no 
way to save such selfish and hypocritical men. 

Jesus further told them : " Wherefore, behold, I 
send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes : 
and some of them ye shall kill and crucify ; and 
some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, 
. and persecute them from city to city : That upon 
you may come all the righteous blood shed upon 
the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto 



286 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye 
slew between the temple and the altar." 

Think of the awful curse which rested on the 
fated heads of those scribes and Pharisees ; and is it 
not a heavier curse on men to-day, that upon them 
may come all the righteous blood, from the blood 
of righteous Abel till the last moan of the poor, 
oppressed man, dying up in yonder garret, or the 
last struggling groans of the expiring girl in the 
tenement house or gutters of the street? 

And now the storm is over and the hard, stony 
ground has refused to accept the softening rains. 
The greatest drama of moral courage, of warning, 
reproof and exhortation, from a heart on fire with 
the truest, burning love for men, was refused in the 
most stubborn and bitter anger. And Jesus breaks 
forth in the most pitiful strain : " O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and ston- 
est them which are sent unto thee, how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not ! " 

Think of it ! The God of heaven in flesh ; He 
by Whom all things were made which are made, and 
without Whom there was not anything made that 
was made, saying He would save these men and 
Jerusalem from their sins and destruction, if He 
could ; but He could not, for they would not. 

God created men free agents and in His own 
image, with power of self-determination and choice 
of their actions. His control over men's free actions 



GREATEST SIN, GREATEST SINNERS. 287 

is commensurate with the love they have for Him, 
for theii fellow-men and their fear to do wrong, 
from a conscience demanding obedience to the 
truth. Since God has given man the power of 
choice in his actions, it would be a violation of His 
contract with man, made at his creation, to compel 
his free acts different from his choice, and God can- 
not lie. Here is the reason of what might appear 
at first sight to be impotency on the part of our 
Saviour. 

"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can 
ye escape the damnation of hell?" The Saviour's 
warnings were ended, but still it seemed as if He 
could not give them up without announcing their 
danger, and uttered the prophecy of the downfall 
and destruction of Jerusalem, saying, " Behold, 
your house is left unto you desolate." The despis- 
ing and forsaking of Jesus was the forsaking of their 
best friend and interests and the damning of them- 
selves. It was only three days till the people of 
Jerusalem committed the most atrocious crime mor- 
tals were ever guilty of — they crucified the Son of 
God. In that same generation, Jerusalem suffered 
the most heart-rending and cruel downfall, with 
horrid sufferings — the bloodiest picture in the book 
of time. So quickly did the sins which Jesus 
reproved, tried to correct and avert in their course, 
bring ruin and disaster upon the entire people of 
their nation. Had the common people known the 
friend they had in Jesus, they would not have left 
Him, on the day of His condemnation, to be carried 



2bb JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

to His cross. They would have thronged about 
Him, and not all the Roman powers and the power 
of the temple combined, could have overridden the 
masses in their demand for His release. 

But as subjects will fight and give their lives for 
the despot who is oppressing them, and as the slave 
will struggle to maintain the possession and au- 
thority his master has over him, so these men, who 
had only a few days before shouted hosannas to 
Jesus, as He rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, 
would not permit Him to strike their cruel task- 
masters, who in the end became their destroyers. 

However harsh anything may have appeared in 
this chapter, it was all in the service of love. As 
the husband and father stands at the door of his 
house, with revolver in hand, aiming death to the 
robbers who would enter and slay his wife and 
little ones, it is ali love, ana noble love, self-sacri- 
ficing love, which dictates and prompts his actions. 
The soldier who sees the life and liberty of his 
country threatened, and shoulders his knapsack 
and gun, may seem bloodthirsty and cruel, but his 
is an act of heroism and love for his country, and 
for it he nobly offers his life. But never was hero 
so grand, nor aims so true, nor love so pure in 
defence of the defenceless, and love for freedom and 
equal rights to all so great, as that which prompted 
the Saviour's heart and directed His words as He 
exposed and uncovered the sins of men which were 
damning the world, and for which love He went 
to the cross and gave His life. 



CHAPTER XVIII, 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 

JK N HOUR or so before Jesus' betrayal, He 
jg&yj said unto His disciples, "All ye shall be 
offended because of me this night." But Peter 
answered and said, "Lord, I am ready to go with 
thee, both into prison, and to death." And he 
meant to do exactly what he said he would. It 
was only a little while till the mob came with 
torches, swords and staves to take Jesus. Peter's 
keen eye took in the whole situation. He dis- 
dained to attack a weak man, so he watched until 
Malchus, the high priest's man, was in range. 
Zip! the sword left the scabbard, a flash in the 
torchlight, and had the sword gone where it was 
aimed, Malchus' head would have dropped between 
his feet. But he only cut off his ear. Peter would 
have stood by his Master, slaying right and left, 
till the mob had fallen back or their swords had 
drank Peter's lifeblood, and he would have made 
his words good, " Lord, I will go to prison with 
thee, or die with thee ;" but the Lord reached forth 
his hand and touched Malchus' ear, and it was 
made whole, and said to Peter : " Put up again 
thy sword into his place : for all they that take the 

289 



29O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou 
that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall 
presently giv^ me more than twelve legions of 
angels ? " Petei was confused and his plans in de- 
fence of his Master were interrupted. He was 
checked in doing just what he thought the Lord 
had accused him of being afraid to do. Peter was 
at broad sea without a rudder ; his Master was 
being taken by an angry mob, while he by the 
Master Himself had been made powerless to help 
and defend Him. Peter lost his balance entirely, 
and in his bewilderment did wickedly. A sorry 
night followed to him ; in fact, three days and three 
nights he was plunged into grief. 

When the Lord rose from the grave and was first 
seen by Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of 
James, and Salome, He told them to " go, tell his 
disciples and Peter." Peter was singled out by 
special affection of the Lord from all the rest of the 
disciples. Peter's will was good, and his attempted 
use of the sword in the defence of his Master was 
prompted by an honest, heroic heart ; but he was 
in the wrong line of defence. He was still in the 
gall of bitterness and did not understand the mode 
of warfare used in the kingdom of heaven — the 
kingdom of brotherly love. The sword was not the 
weapon with which the Master fought His battles. 
The tongue is more powerful than the sword. This 
is the weapon the Saviour wielded in His mighty 
contest for ths reformation of the world. A few 
hours before the Saviour's betrayal, referring to 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 2QT 

this struggle, He said to Peter : " Satan hath de- 
sired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat : 
But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : 
and when thou art converted, strengthen thy breth- 
ren." And the prayer was answered. Peter learned 
in this trial the lesson. Fifty days afterwards, 
he stood up before the assembled multitude on the 
Day of Pentecost, and defended his Master's cause 
with a heroism which was never excelled by any 
general on earth. If he took any thought of him- 
self, he certainly knew that the result of his bold- 
ness would, in all probability, cost him his life, 
and his sufferings would pay the penalty to the en- 
raged scribes and Pharisees, on the same cross 
which his Saviour's blood still stained. But God 
had otherwise ordained, and the effect of the sermon 
he preached was that three thousand were con- 
verted. In recognition of Peter's boldness, the 
powers of hell, by God's almighty intervention, 
were driven back that day from the territory they 
had appeared to gain at the crucifixion. From that, 
till Peter's dying hour, he was a hero for his Master 
with his tongue. No bolder hero ever spoke a 
word ; but never did he again unsheathe his sword 
for either his or his Master's defence. 

" Moses, when he was come to years, refused to 
be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter : choosing 
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, 
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than 
the treasures in Egypt." His heart was all aglow 



292 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

with sympathy for his oppressed kinsmen. " It 
came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, 
that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on 
their burdens : and he spied an Egyptian smiting 
an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked 
this way and that way, and, when he saw that 
there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid 
him in the sand." But Moses was discovered, and 
had to flee from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in 
the land of Midian. 

After Moses had been forty years in Midian, God 
called him and appointed him to go to Pharaoh to 
ask for the deliverance of His people and to make 
known his high commission as from the great 
Jehovah. He had then learned the great lesson of 
trusting in God, and used no more violence, but 
was the meekest of all men. Though Moses' sym- 
pathies were on the right side, he made a mistake 
by slaying the Egyptian. He loved righteousness, 
hated oppression, had a burning zeal for the relief 
of the wronged, but the want of a clear conception 
of the way God would have His children fight their 
battles caused him to commit his rash act, which 
put back the great cause perhaps forty years. God 
loved him, however, for his pure, unselfish, broth- 
erly love, schooled and guarded him while in 
Midian and, when the proper time came, honored 
him with making him the great deliverer of His 
people. 

So our working men have made mistakes, and 
their mistakes have put back the cause for which 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 293 

they were righting. No doubt the Hebrew slaves 
made many mistakes not recorded. In the wilder- 
ness, we read of them being a stiff-necked people. 
But they were God's children and chosen people on 
account of their afflictions, wrongs and oppression. 
" Surely, oppression maketh a wise man mad." 
Our working people are no worse, certainly, than 
the Hebrew slaves. They are as much God's 
chosen people and children as those ancient slaves, 
and the hardened hearts of the Pharaohs who are 
wronging them will receive as signal an overthrow, 
and go down on the pages of history with a more 
damnable record and merit a deeper hell, for they 
have sinned against light, light that Pharaoh never 
saw. 

There is a kingly power in an honest man's 
opinions. That man who loves righteousness, 
is upright, feareth God and escheweth evil, has 
a crown placed upon his head by God's own 
hand. That man will be given words and wisdom 
which the strongest of the wicked cannot gain- 
say nor deny. This great battle which we are 
entering is to be fought with the tongue, sanc- 
tified in the service for men, and in meek subjec- 
tion to the will of God. There is nothing this 
side of hell, which strong, selfish, wicked men so 
fear, as the tongue of a man who is right, who 
knows he is right, and is not afraid to use his tongue 
in defence of the right, laying bare the sins of self- 
ishness and dishonesty, in the fear of God only. 
And well may they fear him, for he is the servant 



294 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

of the omnipotent, omniscient God, making their 
sins to find them out. The tongue of Elijah was 
more than a match for Ahab, the king, and Jezebel, 
the queen, together with the four hundred and fifty 
priests who sat at Jezebel's table. The short 
sentence, " Thou art the man," from the prophet 
Nathan, brought David, the king, to see himself in 
the right light under the truth of God. John the 
Baptist fought a more effective battle with his 
tongue than any warrior ever fought on the bloody 
field of carnage. The tongue of John the Baptist, 
calling men to "Repent, for the kingdom of God is 
at hand," in six months woke up all Palestine. The 
people of Judea first heard the voice, and gathered 
on the banks of the river Jordan to be baptized by 
John. The Jews knew that the wilderness was 
unholy, and Jerusalem was the place where men 
ought to worship But still they went in increasing 
numbers, drawn and held under the sway of the 
lips of that great and righteous man. The Son of 
Mary, the wonderful Son, the carpenter, felt the 
spell of that voice way up in Nazareth, in the land 
of Galilee, laid by the plane and chisel, put down 
the axe and the adze, kissed His mother good-bye, 
went out from under her roof never again to be her 
son, and assembled with the multitude on the 
banks of the Jordan, to be baptized of John. Jesus 
Christ fought a battle with His lips, of which the 
twenty-third chapter of Matthew records the hottest 
part, that is the great opening engagement which 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 295 

will win the world to God and defeat the powers of 
hell. 

The sword has often been used to defend the 
right and disenthrall truth, and the onward march 
of freedom has been in the wake of her battles. 
But after all, the sword is barbarous, and belongs 
to society in her earlier stages of civilization. 

The tongue was the weapon the Son of God used 
in His battles while upon earth, and He would 
have His servants do likewise. Then let him who 
would be a hero in the approaching contest, fear 
not to use his tongue, save against the weak and 
defenceless, or for selfish ends ; but use it against the 
strong, who are oppressing the poor and helpless. 
Use it not for self. Use it for the right, which 
needs assistance. Use it for the wrong, which 
needs resistance. Use it in the service of God, 
which is for the good of His people. Let him use 
it, fearing not and heeding not the fact that when 
he lays bare the true character of the selfishness 
of wealth, the rich men will call him all the names 
which would fitly apply to themselves. It was 
wealthy, aristocratic, highly respected men who 
called the pure and spotless Jesus a devil, because 
He was laying bare their sins. " The disciple is 
not above his master, nor the servant above his 
lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be 
as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they 
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how 
much more shall they call them of his household? 
Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able 



296 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

to kill the soul : but rather fear him which is able 
to destroy both soul and body in hell." 

Now is the time for the servants of Jehovah to 
" Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be 
able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For 
we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
ness in high places. ' ' Soldiers of the living God, take 
the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, 
which is the word of God. " For the word of God 
is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two 
edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder 
of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, 
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not 
manifest in his sight ; but all things are naked and 
opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have 
to do." 

Make the sentiment to prevail that wealth is a 
greater sin than harlotry and drunkenness. Let it 
be understood that he who robs us of our oppor- 
tunities in life, the comforts and enjoyments God 
designed for us, is a worse robber than he who 
robs us of our money at the midnight hour. Let 
the rich, in their magnificence, be viewed in the 
true Christian light, as whited sepulchers, which 
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are actually 
as vile within and as obnoxious to society as the 
rotten bodies of dead men and all uncleanness are to 
the physical atmosphere. Let the sweet truth 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 297 

recorded by the loving disciple John, as he heard 
it from the tender lips of Jesus, be made the popu- 
lar sentiment of the business world, that any man 
who attempts to do business in any other way than 
Jesus does, the same is a thief and a robber. "For 
ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became 
poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." 
Jesus Christ's way of doing business was not to 
use His brightest wits to see how many dollars He 
could rake in for Himself, but to use His great 
powers in the service of and for the happiness of 
men. There is nothing so weak and silly in men 
wearing the image of the true Jehovah as to make 
wealth their god, unless it be we poor fools who 
look up to the rich on account of their wealth and 
the wrongs they do us, almost worship them and are 
diligent in apologizing for their sins. John says, 
" Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he 
laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath 
this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, 
and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
him, how dwelleth the love of God in Him?" 

Let the rich man be viewed in the light of Jesus' 
teachings, with Christian courage and boldness, 
and we will turn back the black curse of plutocracy 
which hangs over our land like a pall. Lay the 
axe at the root of the tree, and it will come to pass 
that '* every plant which my heavenly Father hath 
not planted, shall be rooted up." Some men with 



290 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

large money holdings will be converted and stand 
up like Zaccheus, giving away their goods to feed 
the poor. Let the words of Jesus to the young 
ruler, Go thy way, sell what thou hast, and give to 
the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven, 
be sounded from every pulpit and be the sentiment 
of every fireside. Let the rich man who turns 
away from the message go down every avenue of 
life sorrowing because he is one who has great pos- 
sessions. Let the doors of Jesus Christ's Church be 
shut against him until he does it. Let him under- 
stand, no matter how full of fulsome flattery his 
funeral sermon may be spoken by some obsequious 
minister, that the sermon from the divine lips still 
stands : in hell, the rich man, being in torment, lifts 
up his eyes and sees his poorest employes in com- 
pany with St. Paul, and is begging of Paul to send 
one of them to the earth and warn his brethren to 
sell all they have and give it to the poor, that they 
may not come to that place of torment. Jesus 
Christ answered the prayer of the rich man in hell 
by telling the story for him to his brethren. So let 
the true servant of Jesus Christ continue to echo 
the prayers in hell of modern departed wealthy 
sons of the house of God. The Christian minister 
ought to be the last man to be afraid of a little 
sharp criticism and fuss when he is in the way of 
duty. Jesus Christ said, speaking of this, " I came 
not to send peace, but a sword, and a man's foes 
shall be they of his own household." "Go ye 
therefore, and teach all nations, teaching them to 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 299 

observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world." 

It is a woeful blunder in the Church to apologize 
for the selfishness of wealth. The entertainment 
in and the control rich men have over the Church 
is the great reason for that alarming gulf between 
the Church and the masses, which is growing wider, 
deeper and darker every hour. The poor man may 
not always be able to define his reason for his 
aversion to the Church, but he knows there is 
something wrong with it. The great fact is, the 
poor do not look upon the Church as their friend 
and, consequently, stay away from it, and the poor 
do not have the gospel preached to them. A 
few may N be infidels, but the overwhelming ma- 
jority look upon Jesus as their friend. The reason 
they do not unite with the Church called by His 
name is, doubtless, more or less their sinful hearts ; 
but, yet, if we could get hold of the great source of 
the difficulty, we would find that it is the selfish 
sinning of the rich and those trying to be like the 
rich, who are representatives of the Church, which 
has turned them away from the house of God. 
When Jesus Christ was on the earth, the common 
people heard Him gladly, and this recognition and 
acceptance of Him by the common people was the 
testimony of His divine teachings and His Messiah- 
ship, by which He expected every true heart to recog- 
nize Him. The same rule applies to-day, and 
we are bound to regard it. 



300 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

While it is not expected that ministers are able 
to look into the hearts of men as Jesus did, yet, 
with the history of Jesus' dealings with men, the 
mask has been torn off the hypocrite and, with His 
rule — by their fruits ye shall know them — there can 
"be no difficulty in knowing the hypocrite, and 
should be no hesitation by the servants of Jesus 
Christ in massing the gospel artillery on Satan's 
strongest works — selfishness in high places, in 
wealth and power. With the masks so signally 
torn off the hypocritcal scribes and Pharisees by 
Jesus, it is passing strange that the world should be 
so fooled again by the same kind of men. Our blind- 
ness is far less inexcusable than it was in the men 
two thousand years ago. 

When David, the sweet singer of Israel, saw the 
Tich, "How their eyes stand out with fatness; they 
have more than heart could wish. They are cor- 
rupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression ;" 
he said, " But as for me, my feet were almost 
gone ; my steps had well nigh slipped. It was 
too painful for me ; until I went into the sanctuary 
of God ; then understood I their end. Surely thou 
didst set them in slippery places ; thou castedst 
them down into destruction. Thou shalt guide me 
■with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to 
glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee, and 
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." 

But O ! when the sanctuary was in the hands of 
the rich, as it was when Jesus came to the earth, 
and the ministers were preaching to be seen of men 



PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. 301 

and to please the gay and fashionable people, where 
and how could the slipping feet of the poor find 
the rock upon which to set their feet and establish 
their goings? 

Of course, ministers ought not to be contentious, 
bringing railing accusations against those things 
they know not, but there is no excuse from saying 
the Lord rebuke thee, when confronted by the same 
sinners the Lord was, and rebuking them in the 
same kind of language the Lord did, and then being 
willing to endure hardships as good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ. Ministers are to be wise as serpents 
and harmless as doves. They are to become all 
things to all men to save some, they are to be will- 
ing to be spoken against falsely for the sake of 
Christ, but all these cautions are for them not to 
selfishly defend themselves, but they are even to 
forego their own rights, and it is that they may be 
heroes for the cause of God and man. and speak 
out boldly the truth, no matter whether men 
hear or forbear. These very injunctions against 
contentiousness, self-will and self-defence are to put 
the soldier of Christ where he can be a hero, bold, 
daring and faithful in the Master's cause. If to 
get along smoothly with all men is the prime excel- 
lence of a minister's character, then a pet sheep or 
a good-natured shepherd dog excels all the clergy 
in ministerial graces. If Jesus Christ's dealings 
with the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, and His 
denunciations of them, are not an example for His 
servants to follow, then why were they written as 



302 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

part of that pefect life which is given as an example 
for all men to imitate? If Jesus' last public dis- 
course in the temple, arraigning the scribes and 
Pharisees in terrible condemnation, is no example 
for us His servants, then with what extra evidence 
do we say that His standing at the grave of Lazarus, 
weeping with Mary and Martha, is a pattern for us? 
If Jesus does not sustain Hi» servants in boldly de^ 
fending the poor and the needy, in imitation of Him. 
self, against strong and wicked men, and being will- 
ing to go to crucifixion with Him for it, by what 
proof do we establish the fact that He dries the 
mourner's tears, sympathizes with us in our suffer- 
ings, or is our support in danger, and that He goes 
down to the grave with us ? 

Let a man guard well his temper and put all self- 
interests behind his back. In the fear of God and 
in imitation of the Master's example, with pure 
love for the good of men, let him aim deadly blows 
at the taproot of sin. The storms of the physical 
world purify the atmosphere and make it healthful. 
The sun shines brighter on account of them. The 
flowers, the fruits and the grains grow by the rains 
they bring. The axe must hew down the forests 
and the strong plowshare break up the sod of the 
prairies, to prepare the way for the cultivation of 
fields to give food for the lives of men. Let the 
true servant of God use the same bread axe the 
Saviour used, hewing to the line He has marked, 
heeding not where the chips' may fall. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 




INHERE is as strong evidence in the Scriptures 
for the community of property as there is 
for the Christian Church. While in the garden of 
Eden the lines of society must necessarily be indis- 
tinctly marked, yet everything pointed towards, 
and was in the line of, the community of property. 
Society was established in the sweet affection and 
the community of property between husband and 
wife, which afterward, in the course of nature, de- 
veloped into the family, with the relation of 
brothers and sisters. It is highly probable, if man 
had not sinned, no other form of government 
would ever have been known. 

When God destroyed the race of mankind, on ac- 
count of their wickedness, with the flood, He again 
started the world with Noah and his family, with 
the laws of the family, or the community of prop- 
erty, and so it would have remained had not sin 
entered and broken up the family. 

In Abraham, God started the patriarchal form of 
government, which was a community of property. 
In His second attempt to bring the Jewish people 
into a body politic, and in establishing them in 

303 



304 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

Canaan, He did it with a community of property.. 
The people demanded of Him a king, and at their 
urgent request He granted it, but not until He 
warned them of the evils which would follow. 
After a thousand years of sore oppression from 
their kings, God, apparently hoping that the people 
were tired of their oppressors, in the fullness of 
time sent to the world His Son, Jesus Christ. 

There is no place in all literature where the op- 
pression of wealth is so strongly condemned, and 
that each one should live not unto himself, but for 
the good of others, as is inculcated in the life and 
teachings of Jesus Christ. He gave His life in 
condemnation of the oppression of wealth, and the 
night before He did it, in an address more full of 
affection and love than anything that ever was 
spoken or written, He told His disciples : "This 
is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I 
have loved you." And again: " It is expedient 
for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the 
Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, 
I will send him unto you. And when he is come, 
he will reprove the world of sin and of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment : of sin, because they 
believe not on me ; of righteousness, because 
I go to my Father, and ye see me no more ; 
of judgment, because the prince of this world 
is judged. I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, 
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
you into all truth : for he shall not speak of him- 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 305 

self ; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he 
speak : and he will shew you things to come. He 
shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and 
shall shew it unto you." Immediately following 
these words, in His intercessory prayer, He said : 
" Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
which shall believe on me through their word, that 
they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, 
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that 
the world may believe that thou hast sent me." 
Here Jesus asks that the relation between the 
Father and the Son (and they are one) maybe the 
relation between men. He also told the disciples 
that He had many things to say to them, but they 
could not bear them now. Howbeit, when the 
Spirit of truth came, He would guide them into all 
truth. The passion week was the breaking down of 
the powers of Satan and preparing the way for the 
work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was 
without physical form, shape or appearance, and 
it led men quietly into that which, if attempted in 
observation, would have met too strong opposition 
to have been accomplished. So Jesus said, When 
the Holy Spirit is come, he will reprove the world 
of righteousness, because I go to the Father. Jesus, 
the God in flesh, went to heaven and sent to earth 
God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is without 
sound of voice, or form, or being. He is an es- 
sence, an influence, and if men sin against Him and 
His work, they sin against brotherly love in its 
simplicity, without any actions or words of men 



306 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

which might be misunderstood and so palliate their 
transgressions. Fifty days after the Saviour ut- 
tered these words, the Holy Spirit appeared to the 
disciples and the multitude which was with them, in 
mighty demonstration, and the effect of the work was 
that three thousand were converted, and they which 
believed had all things in common. In a few days, 
two thousand more were added to the Church of 
such as should be saved, and we are told, " When 
they had prayed, the place was shaken where they 
were assembled together ; and they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of 
God with boldness. And the multitude of them 
that believed were of one heart and of one soul : 
neither said any of them that ought of the things 
which he possessed was his own ; but they had all 
things common." 

Two features stood out prominently in this great 
exhibition of the demonstration of the Holy Spirit 
as the will of God. The first led to the establish- 
ing of the Christian Church, and the second was the 
community of property — they had all things com- 
mon. The history of the condition of these ea^ly 
Christians is that great grace was upon them all, 
that they did eat their meat with gladness and sin- 
gleness of heart, praising God and having favor 
with all the people. And the Lord added to the 
Church daily such as should be saved, neither was 
there any among them that lacked. The Pente- 
costal revival was a miniature sample of what the 
society of the world will be when it shall be under 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 307 

the reign of Jesus Christ. The truth into which the 
Holy Ghost led the disciples at the Pentecost is of 
vital importance, and it should be greatly emphasized, 
in our consideration, by the solicitude the Saviour 
manifested about it the night before His cruci- 
fixion. 

All through the Old Testament history, God 
taught His people by leading them into a condition 
with the power of His spirit. It was thus : "He 
made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto 
the children of Israel." The Holy Spirit did not 
command us to establish the Christian Church, nor 
to adopt the first day of the week, instead of the 
seventh, as our day of worship, but its leadings were 
clearly in this direction, and we have been greatly 
blessed in doing it. But even more clearly and 
with greater emphasis did the Holy Spirit teach 
the community of property and show the blessed 
results, that by it there was abundance for all, and 
the grace of God gave them favor among the people, 
the rapid growth of their numbers and large addi- 
tions to their Church of such as should be saved. It 
is not recorded that the Holy Spirit in all His deal- 
ings with men ever struck down a man or woman 
in death, save two. These were Ananias and Sap- 
phira. Their sin was that they told a lie, or in 
modern language, worked a sleek little business 
deceit against this Christian community, and swift 
judgment came upon them. Peter said the deceit 
was a lie, and that it was a lie not unto men, but 
unto God, that it was a lie that Satan had 



308 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

breathed into their hearts, and that it was a lie 
against the Holy Ghost. It was a lie against 
brotherly love, and the spirit of brotherly love 
which the Holy Ghost will shed abroad as the 
reigning influence when the millennium comes. 

The night before Jesus' crucifixion, He washed 
the disciples' feet, as an example for His servants 
that their lives should be in service one of another, 
and with the happiness of each other all the time 
in view. The passover supper, which they were 
eating, was in commemoration of the deliverance 
and liberation of the Hebrew slaves. The paschal 
supper passed away and was supplanted by the 
Saviour's ordination in the institution of the Lord's 
Supper that night. This sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper holds all the virtues of the old paschal, with 
the added significance of the new. The Lord's 
Supper is the Magna Charta of liberty for the 
world. It is the highest mount of ordinance the 
believer attains to while on earth. Here every- 
thing is the purest communism. It is the com- 
munion of saints. Anything like an attempt at 
superiority or dominion here, it would seem, should 
be met with the same signal reproof by the Holy 
Spirit that was poured out on the transgressions of 
Ananias and Sapphira. 

Church property is held as a community, and not 
as a joint stock company. The Church buildings, 
Church colleges, Church almshouses, belong not to 
the men whose money built them, but to the Chris- 
tian community into whose hands the money is 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 309 

entrusted. No money has ever been made to go 
so far in the relief of suffering, the building up of 
society, the education of young men and women, 
as the money managed under the Christian com- 
munity of the Church. Ministers are said to be 
poor financiers, but, notwithstanding, there is no 
other class of men who make so good an appear- 
ance and provide so well for their families, as minis- 
ters, on the same amount of salary. The Church is 
wakening rapidly to a feeling that she has been too 
circumscribe, and that she must touch the physical 
world and take a firmer hold of that which is tem- 
poral and material. This feeling is taking visible 
form in the rapidly developing and growing insti- 
tutional Churches. 

There is nothing which God has designed for 
men in the world that is not under and in the line 
of a community of interests in property. There is 
no reason why a railroad or a rolling mill should 
not be managed in the same way and with the same 
economy and the same sacredness that the affairs of 
the Church are. There is no reason why the gov- 
ernment of the state should not be managed with as 
little expense, and with the same high integrity, and 
more, as the great denominations of the Churches 
in Conferences, General Assemblies and Associa- 
tions manage and control their affairs. 

There is no place where strongmen, able to com- 
mand, good men, consecrated men, men without 
deceit, unselfish men, men with the self-sacrificing 
disposition of the Master, are needed so much as in 



3IO JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

the business world, as business men. It is mission- 
ary ground. Men going here will need no ordination 
of men. Let them have sterling integrity, and God, 
with His own hands, will ordain them and appoint 
them a field equal to their largest powers, and give 
them a mouth and wisdom which all their adver- 
saries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. The 
men going into this field need not expect flowery 
beds of ease, but must be ready for the beatitudes : 
" Blessed are they which are persecuted for 
righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, 
and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil 
against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be 
exceeding glad : for great is your reward in heaven : 
for so persecuted they the prophets which were be- 
fore you." A few such men would be salt in the 
business world, and their savor would be felt far 
and wide. The devil, the monopolists and their 
attaches would be as angry with them as they were 
with Job. 

God has raised up men equal to every emergency, 
and He will have men who will make the monsy 
power tremble on its throne in the contest which 
is before us. He reined down the fiery Saul of 
Tarsus and made Paul the Apostle out of him, the 
most unselfish, self-sacrificing hero for the good of 
men, and the most like his Master of all who have 
lived. God can do the same thing for the business 
world, and He will do it. He has been with us in 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. ^11 

six troubles, and He will not forsake us in this the 
seventh, our last great struggle. 

If ever there was a man whose services merited 
a fortune at the hands of the world, that man was 
the Apostle Paul. Yet if some of our archaeolo- 
gists should discover that Paul had made a million, 
or half a million, or any fortune at all out of his 
missionary labors, we would tear the crown of 
honor from off his brow and brand him as an im- 
postor and a hypocrite. We admire his logic and 
endeavor to imitate his eloquence, but it is his un- 
selfish, self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of the 
good of his fellow-men, which makes him the great 
apostle. If a minister and the official board of a 
church would pattern after the business world and 
steal the property of a church away from the con- 
gregation, they would be set down as demons in 
flesh ; and possibly the reason none ever try it is r 
men are afraid of the timely judgments of Ananias 
and Sapphira coming upon them if they try their 
worldly tricks again on the property of the Holy 
Ghost. Our high honor for the foreign missionary 
is because he not only gives up the hope of wealth 
in his avocation, but home, kindred and country, 
for the good of men he never saw. But if he made 
a fortune by his missionary work, we would have 
no such honor for him. It may be answered that 
these are ministers, and ministers should not be 
worldly-minded nor seek for wealth. True. But 
by what right can a business man be any more 
selfish than a minister, or the Apostle Paul? God 



312 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

does not have one code of laws for a minister and 
another one for a business man. Yes, it may be 
answered, but the Church is sacred and the clergy 
are ministers of sacred things. Exactly so, and 
here is the trouble, while the Church is under Jesus 
Christ's control, though imperfectly, the business 
world is under the control of the devil, the god of 
this world. Here is just where the battle is. We 
want to get the business world out from under the 
management of the devil, and under the control of 
Jesus Christ. We want business done no longer in 
the devil's way, but in Jesus Christ's way. No 
wonder business men scoff at ministers and say 
they are not good business men, for when they go 
into the business world, they cannot get the swing 
of the devil's tactics. But when a minister does 
attempt to be smart in business, like business men, 
he from his high fall usually sinks deeper into the 
mire than the worst of business men. The devil's 
way is pomp, power, authority, wealth, oppres- 
sion, deceit, sharp dealing. But Jesus Christ's 
plan is to put down all rule and all authority and 
power, and men will be ruled by the pure Holy 
Spirit of brotherly love, and every man will be a 
law unto himself. The social ills which the world 
is groaning under cannot be relieved by any code 
of laws or system of government while selfishness 
dominates the human heart. But brotherly love, 
pure brotherly love, will cure all our ills, right all 
our wrongs, and make law unnecessary. Water 
will never rise higher than its source, so we can 



CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 313 

have no perfect standard of love which comes from 
men, for all men, more or less, are selfish. Jesus 
Christ, the pure crystallization of love, is our only 
standard. Love to God, or Jesus Christ, as the 
standard for love to men, is the whole of the doc- 
trine of sociology and political economy in one 
sentence. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 

RMAGEDDON in the Hebrew means the 
((r&K mountain of the gospel, or the mountain 
of fruits and abundance. The word is used only 
once in the Scriptures, and that is in the sixteenth 
chapter of the Revelation to John by the Holy 
Spirit of those things which will come to pass on 
the earth. This great battle of Armageddon is 
prophesied to come in the pouring out of the vial 
by the sixth angel. The sacred narrative reads 
thus : ''And the sixth angel poured out his vial 
upon the great river Euphrates ; and the water 
thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of 
the east might be prepared. And I saw three un- 
clean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of 
the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and 
out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they 
are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go 
forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole 
world, to gather them to the battle of that great 
day of God Almighty. And he gathered them to- 
gether into a place called in the Hebrew tongue 
Armageddon." 

314 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 315 

The opinion is becoming prevalent, even with 
the most conservative, that we are at the threshold 
of wonderful developments. The world has cer- 
tainly suffered long enough from Satan's oppres- 
sions to be ready to rise in the strength of man's 
integrity and throw off his yoke. The widely dif- 
fused Christian intelligence is opening the eyes of 
men to see their wrongs and know that the times 
are ominous with foreboding evil. On every side 
there are the crystallizations of smaller lines of 
trade and manufactories into larger ones, so that 
the work may be done by less men, and the goods 
laid upon the counters at a lower figure. Men 
with a small business have to increase their trade 
or works and handle a larger volume to make the 
same profits. Machinery is brought into requisi- 
tion at every available point, so that one man now 
does the work of several men a few years ago. Men 
are arranged in large establishments, so that every 
one works to the best advantage and no time is 
lost by any. This unloosing of the pent-up powers 
of nature and the organization of labor, the 
fruits of the quickened Christian intellect, are gen- 
erally seized in their infancy by selfish and strong 
men to build up fortunes, instead of ministering to 
the comforts of the masses. The corruption of 
business on every hand, the deepening of poverty, 
the approaching dark storm-cloud of plutocracy, 
are rumors of misery, bloodshed and war such as 
the world has never witnessed before. When God 
created the world, He spake and it was done, He 



316 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

commanded and it stood fast, and by the power of 
His word the universe moves on to-day. Man, 
whom He created in His own image, as far as pos- 
sible is to be like Him, in that he is to live with- 
out servile toil and bid nature do the work for him ; 
and it will obey him, when Satan's fetters are 
broken off. This prostitution of the fruits of 
Christian developments of the world by selfish men, 
in obedience to the devil, to build up fortunes and 
rob the masses, has had its day and must soon fall. 
Men are not going to wait till the full tide of the 
curse is upon us. It is enough to know it is ap- 
proaching, to arouse men to the rescue of the com- 
ing generation and themselves from the threatening 
danger. 

The gospel is already preached in all the world, 
for a witness unto all nations, and Jesus told us : 
Then shall the end come. While the foreign mis- 
sionary work has been pushed forward, a silent in- 
fluence has caused the name of Jesus among the 
masses at home to become almost universally popu- 
lar. This is something which never was so before. 
Neither were the people in foreign fields ever with 
hearts so open and ready to receive the gospel. 
" Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they 
are white already to harvest." 

When Jesus was upon the earth, the common 
people thronged Him, and pressed one against 
another to hear the gracious words which proceeded 
from His lips. The same truth has like influence 
upon the hearts of men in all ages. The kind senti- 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 317 

ment in the hearts of the common people all over 
the land to Jesus Christ is the preparation by the 
Holy Spirit of the people, as He inspired the He- 
brew slaves to assemble under the leadership of 
Moses and go out of their house of bondage. It is 
the salt of the earth gaining its savor, that the 
world may be seasoned. It is the light of the world, 
kindled by Jesus Christ and being placed upon the 
candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in 
the house. This rising popularity of Jesus among 
the masses is the sound of the going in the tops of 
the mulberry trees, bidding us to go out to battle, 
for God hath gone forth before us to smite the hosts 
of sin. They are the doves, as a cloud, flying to 
their windows, which Isaiah saw. It is the coming 
realization of Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones in 
the valley, of bone coming to bone. The flesh will 
come upon these bones, skin will cover them over, 
the breath of the spirit of the heavenly Master's 
brotherly love will fill their hearts, and there will 
stand upon their feet an exceeding great army. 
" Arise, shine : for thy light is come, and the glory 
of the Lord is risen upon thee." 

The eyes of the disciples were holden that they 
could not understand their Master and His mission, 
till after His death, burial, resurrection and He was 
about to ascend up into heaven ; then they under- 
stood the Scriptures that He must be crucified, 
buried and rise again. So the eyes of the people 
have been holden, but the time is dawning when 
Jesus shall be recognized in His true love and light. 



318 JESUS CHRIST AS a business man. 

The world no longer demands new statements of 
theological doctrines, but asks for the person of 
Jesus Christ. 

The life of Jesus, presented with all its practi- 
cal bearings on the everyday side of life, is what 
is wanted. Commensurate with and far exceeding 
the breaking away from the old forms of be- 
lief and doctrines formulated by men, there is an 
increasing demand that the life of Jesus Christ shall 
be preached as it is found in the gospels, without 
additions or toning down hard places to suit any- 
one. The desire is that Jesus shall live in His fol- 
lowers, and so move among us, that professing 
Christians may be living epistles, read and known 
of all men. Professions of piety are being put to 
the test, and what men really are is emphatically 
becoming the world's criterion of goodness or 
Christian character. Christian is almost universally 
now held by the masses as a synonym for all that is 
good and lovely, while Church membership is taken 
for what it is really worth in the individual who 
wears it. 

Consequent and akin to the aspirations that 
Jesus Christ be so held before the worfd that we 
shall see Him living with us and in us, we hear 
the battle cry sounding all through the land, that 
Jesus Christ, in the person of His true followers, 
must come again, face to face with the arch-enemy, 
whom He met and who crucified Him eighteen 
hundred years ago. There will doubtless be a storm 
when the great fact is brought to bear upon men 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 319 

that they can no longer practice all these kinds of 
wrongs upon the poor and defenceless, then make 
long prayers, pay tithes of mint, anise, cummin, 
and for it be canonized as saints in the Church. 
The time is near when men who pretend to take 
Jesus as their leader must manage their busi- 
ness as Jesus did, or they will be denounced by all 
as hypocrites, serpents, a generation of vipers who 
cannot escape the damnation of hell. The great 
realities of Jesus Christ's last public discourse are as 
true and as applicable to-day as when they pierced 
the ears of those wealthy, self-righteous men in the 
temple of God. These great divine truths are fast 
wakening in the souls of the people, and the 
moans of the poor and defrauded have entered into 
the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and Jesus will 
never allow the agitation to cease, nor will His 
soldiers lay down their arms, till business squares 
itself to, and patterns itself after, Kis great plan of 
redemption. Sure as the Lord God liveth, He will 
bring it to pass. 

Soon doubting Thomas will doubt no more and 
heroic Peter will no longer fail to comprehend His 
Lord's mode of warfare, but will stand upon that 
greater than the Pentecostal day, with heroism 
like the Master's, and instead of three thousand 
being born into the kingdom of God, ten thousand 
and ten thousand will declare their allegiance to 
Jesus in a single day. Much as may be said about 
the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of Church mem- 
bers, and great as the sins of many are, yet there 



32O JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

are a host in the Church like Simeon of old and 
Anna the prophetess, who are waiting for the re- 
demption of Israel, and will recognize the Saviour 
and His gospel in simple love, brotherly love for 
all men. The gospel in eighteen hundred years has 
wrought a great change in the condition, intelli- 
gence and influence of the common people. No 
change has been so great as that of the last cen- 
tury, and that of the last quarter has been by far 
the most marked. The momentum of increasing 
strength augurs the gathering of the forces of God 
Almighty without delay to battle in the valley of 
Armageddon. With all the Church's shortcom- 
ings and faults, she has been the watch-tower 
which has kept the light burning to direct the 
way for the mariner on the sea of life. However 
conservative ministers may be, and however much 
they may hesitate to adopt new ways, yet when 
they are fully convinced of what is their duty, there 
is no class of men who can be depended upon to so 
forget their own interests and sacrifice so much for 
the good of their fellow-men, as they. On the 
other hand, he who from their number proves him- 
self to be selfish, and shirks his duty of service to 
his fellow-men, is the blackest of the train of 
hypocrites on earth. 

Opposed to Jesus are the devil, his angels and 
selfish men, battling against brotherly love, good- 
will, peace and plenty for all men. The devil and 
his angels were created holy and happy in heaven, 
free agents, with the power of self-determination 



THE I3ATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 321 

and choice of action. The dominion of will, which 
God recognizes and respects in men always, and 
which men -of all things would surrender last, God 
consistently regards in Satan and his angels. But 
the history of God with men is that He has always 
placed man on vantage-ground over Satan, assuring 
him that the great omnipotent Jehovah is his friend, 
would fight his battles for him, if man would only 
allow Him to do so, and, finally, lead him out into 
green pastures where the living waters flow. In 
this great battle of Armageddon, the hearts of the 
common people will be won by the transcendent 
merits of Jesus and His truth. The victory will re- 
sult in the common people coming " in the unity of 
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ." But they who have had 
brotherly iove burnt out of their hearts by selfish- 
ness, and become seared as with a hot iron, life 
gone like the igneous rocks ; them the power of 
God's condemning truth will strike blow after blow 
grinding them into powder, as the rocks of the ele- 
mental world were ground by almost almighty 
forces, making the sand and soil for the habitation 
of man and beast. 

Satan is the author of all disease, sickness, death, 
sin, ignorance, debauchery, vice ; in fine, everything 
which is evil comes from the devil, and is perpetu- 
ated in the world and intensified by the assistance 
of men. On the other hand, Jesus Christ brought 
life and immortality to light by His gospel. God 



322 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

created man perfect. He was physically without a 
weakness or tendency to sin, sickness or death. 
When Jesus came to the world, He took to Himself 
a perfect body. He never had one moment of sick- 
ness or pain which came from within. He even 
declared of the life in His physical body : " No man 
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I 
have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again. This commandment have I received 
of my Father." Peter told the people on the Day 
of Pentecost that " God loosed the bonds of death " 
which held Him in the tomb, " because it was not 
possible that he should be holden of it." The evan- 
gelists sum up the merits of Jesus' life by saying 
that " he went about teaching in their synagogues, 
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and heal- 
ing all manner of sicknesses, and all manner of dis- 
ease among the people." When Peter became con- 
vinced of the absolute brotherhood of all men, he 
expressed his convictions by saying, " How God 
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost 
and with power; who went about doing good, and 
healing all that were oppressed of the devil : for 
God was with him." Paul says : " For as in Adam 
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 
When Jesus was on earth, He never attended a 
funeral, for it was impossible ; He would have taken 
the dead man out of the coffin before the funeral 
had time to begin. When He was taken into 
the room where the little daughter of Jairus lay 
dead, His first words were, " Talitha, cumi ; which 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 323 

is, being interpreted, Damsel (I say unto thee), 
arise." He met the funeral procession bearing the 
widow's son, of Nain, to burial, " and when the 
Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said 
unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched 
the bier : and they that bare him stood still. And 
he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he 
that was dead sat up, and began to speak." When 
Jesus was taken by Lazarus' sisters to his grave, it 
is said, "Jesus wept!" This was happily made the 
shortest verse in the Bible, for that weeping was 
doubtless very short. Over the protest of Martha 
that " he stinketh, for he hath been dead four 
days," Jesus commanded them, " Take away the 
stone," and His pent-up sympathies while wait- 
ing, broke forth, as "he cried with a loud voice, 
Lazarus, come forth." Wherever He went, the 
lame, the sick and diseased, the blind, the deaf, 
thronged Him to be healed, and He never turned 
any away, but, on the other hand, often asked for 
the privilege of loosing those who were thus bound 
by Satan in sickness, disease and death. What a 
strange doctrine is that which some teach as good 
theology, that Jesus has anything to do with send- 
ing death or disease into our homes, as His chastise- 
ments upon us. Let them show where, when He 
was upon the earth, He ever made a man sick, or 
lame, or blind, or killed anyone, or else cease their 
slandering of our Jesus. Mothers knew by womanly 
instinct that their babes were safe in His arms and 
that they would get them back again, and with 



324 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

blessings on their heads. Jesus does all that can be 
done to relieve pain and sorrow, enlarge our com- 
forts and joys, and not at the same time take away 
our dominion and freedom of choice. As long as 
men choose the cause of woe, it is not possible to 
shield them from its effects and results. But, when 
Satan worries and torments the sheep of Jesus' fold 
with sickness and pain, Jesus has such a wonder- 
ful way of coming to the distressed ones with bless- 
ings, that the blessings outweigh the sorrow, and 
we say : " It is good for me that I have been 
afflicted," When Satan with death takes away 
our friends, Jesus comes and takes the spirit as it is 
•disembodied and carries it away to heaven's bright 
life of light and love, where Satan never again can 
annoy. It is a thousand times more blest where 
Jesus is ; and so He shows Himself infinitely more 
than a match for Satan. 

Jesus' miracles were not, as Hume said, a viola- 
tion of the laws of nature, neither were they a 
subjugation of the laws of nature, as our theolo- 
gians tell us ; but they were the unloosing of 
nature from the fetters Satan tied about it, and 
from which it was groaning to be delivered. For 
we know that the whole creation was made sub- 
ject to vanity, not willingly, groaneth and travail- 
eth in pain together until now, waiting for the 
manifestation of the sons of God to be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious 
liberty of the sons of God, which will be accom- 
plished in the great battle of Armageddon. What 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 325 

were the miracles of the few loaves and fishes, but 
the untying of nature, to let her exert the power 
God put into her at the creation ? What were the 
opening of the eyes of the blind, the unstopping of 
deaf ears, the unloosing of tied tongues, the calling 
the dead to life, but the unloosing of Satan's fet- 
ters from men and restoring them to the place for 
which nature had created them? The miracles 
were the establishing of the laws of nature and 
restoring them free from the curse of Satan. The 
miracles are glimpses of what nature will do for us 
when man throws off his service to Satan, stops his 
selfish sinning, and swears allegiance to brotherly 
love and Jesus Christ. We now see the meaning 
of our Saviour's words the night before His cruci- 
fixion, when He said : "Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do 
shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall 
he do; because I go unto my Father." Oh, how 
pregnant with meaning is the petition in our 
Lord's Prayer, And deliver us from evil, the powers 
and the fetters of the evil one ; and we put ourselves 
under Him so that He can do it for us. "Eye. 
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered 
into the heart of man the things which God hath 
prepared for them that love him." The movements 
of the last century are an object lesson that nature is 
waiting for us, bursting with plenty for all ; and 
the development of our generation over our an- 
cestors of a few centuries ago is an earnest that we 
may and will, under the influence of brotherly love, 
rise to men and women of whom we now know not. 
With God on our side, we should fear nothing. 
You see that man with checked shirt and blue 
drilling overalls, standing on the cab of yonder 
engine, with a quarter of a mile of freight cars at- 
tached to his locomotive. A thousand men, with 



326 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

crowbars, cant hooks and handspikes, could not 
move the train along. But there is a wave of the 
lantern by a man near the caboose, the engineer 
takes hold of the lever, opens the throttle, the 
great engine begins to belch forth its steam and 
smoke, the train moves slowly along the track ; 
at first, she seems to crawl, but faster and faster she 
moves, until she flies oyer the steel track at the 
rate of more than twenty miles an hour. This was 
all accomplished by the man on the locomotive 
complying with God's revealed, ordained law of the 
strength of steel and the power of steam. What 
fools we preachers are, standing on the floor of the 
engine of God's sacred desk, pulling away with 
rhetoric, grammar, science, polemic theology, higher 
criticism, profane history, philosophy, esthetics, 
popular themes, and every modern appliance the 
wits of man can devise to catch the attention of the 
masses, when God's own engine of almighty truth 
lies on the sacred desk, spread open before us. Oh> 
why not comply with God's revealed divine law! 
Teach the gospel, " Not with fleshly wisdom," 
' k Not with excellency of speech or of wisdom," 
" Not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of 
Christ should be made of none effect." " For after 
that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom 
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe." " Not by 
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the 
Lord of hosts." "Our sufficiency is of God." Oh, 
why not open the throttle of the inspired word, and 
let the whole power of divine truth take hold of the 
people? 

In the battle of Armageddon, " the sword of the 
spirit, which is the word of God," will be un- 
sheathed and wielded to its entire length ; " for the 
word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than 



THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 327 

any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and in- 
tents of the heart." Old Archimedes used to say, 
if he had a place to put his fulcrum and a lever long 
enough, he could lift the world. The fulcrum is 
the Bible, the lever is the cross, and the modern 
Archimedes is the tongue of the common people 
speaking forth the love there is in Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

The great battle of Armageddon will be the great- 
est and fiercest ever fought by the sons of men on 
earth. Slavery was as the killing of a dog, despot- 
ism the slaying of a wolf ; while the money power 
is the fiercest and most cruel tiger that prowls the 
forests of sin. But the Lion of the tribe of Judah, 
in that great contest on the battlefield of Armaged- 
don, will lay the monster bleeding, dying and dead 
at His feet, and brotherly love shall triumph glori- 
ously that day, over selfishness and sin. "The 
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the law- 
giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and 
unto him shall the gathering of the people be." On 
the field of Armageddon, under Jesus Christ's 
sweet influence and example, men will choose 
brotherly love and renounce selfishness in every 
form. Then will the powers of Satan be loosed 
from nature ; the devil will be driven out of the 
world, and God will bind him and "cast him into 
the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal 
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no 
more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled."* 

Isaiah, with a vision of things to come as clear as 
John's on the Isle of Patmos, wrote of this time : 
" For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth 
with peace : the mountains and the hills shall break 

*Rev. xx., 3. 



328 JESUS CHRIST AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

forth before you into singing, and all the trees of 
the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the 
thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the 
brier shall come up the myrtle tree : and it shall be 
to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that 
shall not be cut off."* " The wolf also shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid ; and the calf, and the young lion, and the 
fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. 
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowl- 
edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."f 
" They shall not build, and another inhabit ; they 
shall not plant, and another eat ; for as the days of 
a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect 
shall long enjoy the work of their hands. There 
shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an 
old man that hath not filled his days. And they 
shall build houses, and inhabit them ; and they shall 
plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them." J; 
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, 
and their spears into pruninghooks : nation shall 
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 
learn war any more. But they shall sit every man 
under his vine and under his fig tree ; and none 
shall make them afraid : for the mouth of the Lord 
of hosts hath spoken it."§ " And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes."|| And Jesus 
"shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." 



*Is. lv., 12, 13. fls. xi.,6. 9. $Is. lxv., 22, 20,21. §Micahiv., 
3,4. HRev. vii.. 17. 



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